Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I would like to call this planning commission's work session to order for Thursday, 12/04/2025. My name is Jack Haroun, and I'm the vice chair of the Clark County Planning Commission. Before we begin tonight, I would like to announce that our planning commission work sessions are hybrid, both in person and via Webex. For the virtual and in person members of the planning commission and staff, please ensure that your microphones are turned on or muted unless you are speaking. There will not be any public comment during this work session, but members of the public can watch or listen.

This evening's agenda is planned as follows. We'll call to order. We'll go over the comp plan chapters, environmental element, parks and recreation and open space element, and the climate element. Number three, we'll do the ag study review, and then we'll take comments, from members of the planning commission. Alright. With that, I think I'd like to turn this over to Bart and Jeddah for the comp plan chapters.

Thank you, Jack. For the record, Bart catching, community planning. Think I don't know if we've met Kyle, but I'm I'm Bart. Anyway, tonight, I'm gonna lead off with the discussion of the first of three chapters that we're going over this evening. It's chapter four in our comp plan, the environmental element.

We, brought the goals and policies for this, chapter to you all in June, I believe. And so now we're just discussing the the top top part of the chapter, so to speak, the the text and and background information. It's not my intent here to go through every little underlying and strike through. I just want to, give a high level discussion of of what, Jenna and I did. At the outset, I would like to say that, this was definitely a team effort going over this chapter.

And and by team effort, I probably mean maybe two thirds of the work Jenna did, especially reaching out to the the the inner inner county and and, out outside county partners, and then we worked on the text and reviewing things together. So don't want anybody to think that it was all all me. So thank you. So I I'm I actually just want to give a little bit of background again about what the environmental chapter is since we haven't thought about it in a while. It focuses on the things that you would think that would be part of the environmental chapter critical areas, endangered species, storm water.

It also touches on the intersection with shorelines, parks, and then there is a large body of text in in this chapter about air quality, and also quite a bit about, specifically about fish and water water quality. There's some some new text that that you will see relating to the intersection with the new climate chapter. And, again, most of the actual updates for the text relating to the climate, items are in the goals and policies that we already went over. So there's been no changes to those since the last last time we spoke. But if if you have any questions about those, we have the resident expert here.

And with with that, I just want to talk about how we went through the chapter real quickly. We approached this chapter as staff has been approaching all of these chapters. We didn't go in trying to change anything that didn't, either require changes based on codes code updates or or it was a a strong suggestion from a agency partner or something like that. So you'll see a fair amount of yellow in here, but, the the bulk of it is either updated new language from our agency partners or just, you know, statutory, code code updates, new new names and citations, things like that. On the first page, there are five bullet points, and we did add the relationship to other elements.

We added two more because there will be a climate change chapter now in the comp plan. So that's obviously has a strong intersection with environmental. And then, the shorelines has been integrated into the comp plan, for a long time, and that wasn't specifically called out. So we added that in on those bullet points on page one. I would, move Jeff, if you could move along to, page three.

There, I would call to your attention. We we were able to, get some new information, update, a couple of the lake water body names. And, again, this was based on research and suggestions from from folks outside of of, our department mostly. In the fish and wildlife habitat section, you'll see, a fair amount of yellow, especially on, page four. That was, primarily due to comments provided to us from, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, WDFW, and, the Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board, LCFRB.

They they are the experts, in in, you know, salmon and and and water body health as it relates to those species. So we we deferred to their their their help with with the text updates through there. On page five, you'll see, some new language with, the habitat conservation, that was based primarily on feedback from, I believe it was mostly from Brent and our and our internal, wetlands and habitat review team, because our department doesn't do that work directly. That's through community development. So that's where those suggested updates came from.

Below that, the, new and and updated information in the Endangered Species Act section, on going on to page, from five to six. That's mostly, from comments and updated information from Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Moving on to, page what did I wanna go to next? I mean, there's a few minor minor items on page seven and eight, but again, it's with mostly from those same comments from Fish and Wildlife and our internal Habitat team just to update and clarify language. And then on page nine, Brent and, the Habitat team, helped us with some some new the bullet point language under the wetlands conservation program.

And that that is, I believe I'm sorry to put you on the spot, Jenna. I think that's tied to the new updates that they did to the code.

Yeah. It's just sort of refreshed language to align with the current guidance Yeah.

And code.

Yeah. Because they did a big, overhaul of the of the conservation wetlands section of the development code, like, a year and a half ago or so. And, so that that was tried to be reflected in here. Obviously, this isn't the code, but it references it. We on page 11, we made, quite a bit of effort, especially, towards the towards the end of our update process.

Jenna was pushing pretty hard to get some some some updated language on the flood floodplain, flood hazard area language. We finally got that, to the we best of our knowledge, this is the latest and greatest citations reflected in that section. Again, this chapter is it's not the code. It just discusses other codes. So it's it's kind of drafted by committee, so to speak.

So we we were doing our best with the with the the layout that we we had and and trying not to re reinvent the wheel, but update everything and make it as current as possible by the date of publication. So that's what we did with, the floodplain, information. That's what we did with, the small updates to the geohazard information on pages twelve and thirteen. Again, this is administered through, community development and their critical areas permitting process, not through our department. So this is more just to reflect, how the the comp plan under underlies the the code for those sections.

We on page 14, we reference the, the shorelines program and master master plan that is in itself part of also, adopted as part of the comp plan. It's referenced in many many places, in in the comp plan as well. And and so we, Jenna worked very hard on an update to the shorelines, documents a couple years ago. So that's, referenced in here. Our own internal staff, did a lot of work, a few years ago on the Gorge Scenic area, code work, code sections that we have, relating to the to that plan.

So we updated some language that's reflected on page, 14. And then the the text part

of the

chapter, before the goals and policies finishes up with a a pretty lengthy section on air resources. The there you will see just the all of the existing language basically struck out and new language behind it. That is, from the recommendation of the local agency that administers, air quality and regulation because that's not done directly through the county. So that's the Southwest Clean Air Agency, SWCAA. And so, obviously, we read the language that they gave us.

We, you know, made sure that it it made sense in the context of the plan, but but we had to defer to them as as the technical experts on that. And, so that language that you see, through the end on page twenty, twenty one, and 22 of the current draft is, from SWCAA. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that I can or take notes and get answers for you if Jenna and I can't answer questions for you.

No.

I don't have any questions. I I from what you're saying and what I'm seeing here, this is basically a narrative of some of the the different programs and and codes that we have to follow?

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's different than some of the other chapters. It's more of a high level description of of the lay of the land for the whole environmental program in many, many different areas. So, yep, I think that's a good summary.

Okay. Yeah. Thanks, Bert.

Mark's on.

Oh, Mark.

Any questions? No questions. I just kinda got the tail end of it, but I agree with what he said. We're good.

Yeah.

I just had just had one question or comment on page 26. We talked about the culvert and the fish passage. And I know there's a they're reevaluating some of the statewide efforts on how they're prioritizing where they're putting the culverts in just because they would replace one, but there'd be, like, blockages below and blockages above, and so we're not restoring total streams. I didn't know if there was any language that we would look at or if you guys have considered, like, prior how that works in the system of, like, how do we prioritize a the lowest hanging fruit to get the streams functional again if we have limited resources. You know, like, if we can fix 20 culverts in a year that we focus on one stream to get that versus 20 and I know they're tied with road projects and other stuff, so there's, you know, there's more layers to it.

But that was just my my thoughts, so I didn't know what, you know, the stance was on that.

Yeah. I think this is definitely not our area of expertise, and that language was suggested by the fish and wild Department of Fish and Wildlife. So I think we would defer to them on what's the strategy. So, not something, we know I I don't think off the top of our head, but I think it's a good it's a good point on you should be strategic so you're using your resources wisely.

Yeah. And as far as culverts and stormwater goes, I mean, it's all guided by the the Western Washington manual and and the core rules and things. So, I don't know, you know, how much even leeway there really is to but if you're speaking of, like, more of a broad policy approach, were you suggesting some some new language, or just do you want some clarification what that means?

I I wouldn't mind language guiding staff to to at least look at that. So, like, maybe maybe we get a grant. So, like, usually, when if you're doing a road, you have to fix whatever culvert's there to bring it up to standard when you know, for that. Right? If we're working on that.

But if there's a a specific grant that comes out of commerce or fish and wildlife that says, hey, Clark County. Here's $10,000,000 to replace culverts, that were that maybe we've targeted or we have already in our planning picked the most viable streams and that that we could have the most effect on and say, okay. We are focusing on these on this one thing to get salmon at least in one stream versus partial fixes in a you know? Yeah.

Yeah. And and that's a great point, and they may already do that. I don't know for sure. So so let's do a little background checking on that, because everything you're saying makes sense. That's all I have. And and unless Jenna wants to say

Alright. So we'll go to the, next element with, parks and recreation.

Amy? It's my turn.

Yes, ma'am.

Good evening. Planning Commission. For the record, Amy Wooten for community planning. This chapter that we're going to be looking at briefly is seven parks, recreation, and open space element. In order to arrive at the changes we're recommending, we worked with park staff and there's a lot of yellow because in 2022, park staff adopted and updated parks recreation and open space plan, and it underwent a big kind of overhaul change.

And so a lot of the changes that we have in the comprehensive plan this go around are to kind of bring into agreement the two documents. And a lot of the changes in the PROs plan, I think, were retroactively kind of recognizing the split from city of Vancouver Parks Department. There was a lot of leftover verbiage from the 2013 split, and so we're just kind of rectifying all of that. So the first page is just changing the introduction a little bit, talking about GMA goals and policies that intersect with parks. I think this is a new requirement, I think, from the climate bill.

And some of these changes also reflect changes that are required in the climate bill. There's really no major changes on page two. It's just wording and reorganization. In 2022 with the pro pros plan, the parks Board reimagined their vision and mission statements. So those have been added to the document.

Some of the public involvement and survey information that was included has been struck because it was for the last document. It's not it doesn't apply to the work that was done this time, but planning and guiding documents that were used to update the PROs have been added to the comp plan. Page four, there is an addition of demands and needs analysis that was done for the PROs plan, and they updated the capital facilities plan and the capital improvement plan processes. So we described those a little bit and then rearranged some of the chapter so that we're hoping to enhance the read the readability. On page five, we included well, we updated the Clark County urban park system table and updated the acreages so that they would match what's in the 22 PROs plan.

We updated descriptions of the different parks, neighborhood parks, community parks, urban open space to meet the descriptions that are currently being applied in our park systems. We also updated acquisition and development standards for all of those parks. The biggest change, I think that was made is on page. I'm scrolling, 14, where we added some verbiage relating to tree canopy coverage, which is a new requirement that was included in the climate bill. So the public works department did a tree canopy report, which we're recommending be adopted by reference.

And we put a little blurb in there to meet the state's requirement for our reporting on tree canopy. Other than that, most of the changes are pretty basic. I'm open to any questions you might have for me.

Mark, do have any questions?

Nope. It's a lot of data, and, I've learned a lot. But, yeah, no questions, really.

Kyle?

No. I don't have any questions.

I have, one question on, page 10. When we have acquisition goals of 10 acres per a thousand population, is that is that how we are assessing or it comes into the assessment of, like, park impact fees?

The acquisition goals, I think, are established by a national standard that park services have to reach or are are attempting to reach. It's called NRPA, National Recreational Park Guidelines or something like that, but I don't think it has anything to do with park impact fees.

Okay. I I didn't know if that fell into the calculation as far as this is the goal that we're trying to get. This is the money that we'll need to reach that goal. Ergo, developers, this is your portion

They're of separate. So park impact fee fees are a fee that we collect to try to develop in the parks, but the goal for how much acreage we have per thousand residents is separate from that.

Right. But the the the park impact fees, are calculated based

I see what you're saying.

Based upon what you're trying to achieve. So that was kinda my that's kind of the question there. Because the second part of that is, like, the so call it two people per apartment per apartment. So if you built 500 apartments, so couple good sized complexes, you would want 10 acres of park space. Would that be the goal?

Like, so as we densify, are we still maintaining that that goal? Because if we're on a national standard for every I mean, if you have thousand single family homes would be looked at differently than a thousand a thousand people in a in a subdivision would be looked at differently than a thousand people in a high rise buildings. And so I didn't know how that was being being figured in when we're looking at densifying everything.

I do you have any idea, Jose?

I don't think that type of density has an impact. It's just the it's just the population per acre standard. Like you said, it's a it's a national standard. So it I don't think it's changed. And when parks looks to update their pros plan in '27, parks

two. 2020. No. No. No.

The next update that there will be

2027.

In be in 2027. And so they'll react to our comprehensive plan. And so if we're looking at densifying, then they may look at making an adjustment if that is warranted.

Yeah. And I'm I I don't know what's good or bad on this, you know, so it's kind of that yeah. Questions raised.

Alright. Was there any other questions?

Alright. Jenna on the climate element.

All right. Good evening. For the record, Jenna Kaye with Community Planning. And, before you, we have, chapter 14, which is the new climate element chapter that is proposed to address the requirements of House Bill eleven eighty one, which, as I think you probably both recall, or all three of you recall, in the twenty twenty three state legislative session, this legislation passed, and it added a new it added climate change as a new, required element in comprehensive plans. So the entire chapter is yellow and underlined because it is entirely new.

So I and I'm not going to go through every single thing that's in here, but I want to give you an overview of what's in it and why. So there's actually an outline on this first page of what's contained in this chapter. So the background information that we chose to include, we looked at the legislative language and the commerce guidance document to help us pick, okay, of all the work we've done, what seems important to include here? And so this section really is drawing from the work we've done over the past few years to develop the climate policies. So, in the chapter text, you will find a summary of the Growth Management Act climate element requirements, and then how the goals and policies in the chapter meet those requirements.

We have a summary of the climate projections and impacts for the unincorporated county. We have, information from the inventory of greenhouse gas emissions for the county, greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, vehicle miles traveled per capita information, and then a summary of how the goals and policies in the chapter benefit overburdened communities and improve environmental justice. And then you'll find all the goals and policies that we previously reviewed with you all in May and June of this year. So that's if you read through it, that's that's basically what you'll find. And, you know, again, it's drawing on information we've already shared with you, so I don't think the background I don't think there's anything new in there that we really haven't talked about with you.

There is one policy that I'd like to go to. It's on page 27. It's policy 14.23.4. This is the only new policy, that we haven't discussed previously when we reviewed the policies with you, And it's based on a conversation we had with the county council at and meeting with them on August 6. The the guidance from commerce recommends that local jurisdictions set targets on getting on reducing their greenhouse gases emissions to net zero.

And so we we had a a discussion with county council, and they directed us to use targets that align with the statewide emissions reduction targets. At least for now, as placeholders, they may choose to decide those. They may choose to, adjust those, you know, after the hearing, but at least for now, we're using, these numbers which align with the statewide targets. So that's a new policy that we've added in here just to reflect that. Okay.

So that's what's in the chapter. We did also include one other item in your meeting materials. It is, the draft of a new appendix that we are proposing to add into the comprehensive plan that provides a lot of supporting documentation for this climate element. We didn't print it because it is so it's about a 100 pages long. But it's basically the backup documentation on for each policy, these are the requirements of the legislation that it's meeting and, essentially, sort of a a matrix for us to show our work on backing up the policies that are being proposed.

So that is there as well if you'd like to look at it. Is a little hard to process as a PDF. We use it as an Excel spreadsheet, behind the scenes a lot, but that is there as well. And that appendix also includes a copy of the equity and environmental justice lens that the Environmental Justice Coalition helped us develop and apply when, considering draft policies, again, to provide documentation, helping support how we got to the policies that are being proposed. So I'm going to stop there and glad to take questions.

Mark?

Jenna, you mentioned that you you guys work using an Excel spreadsheet for that. And did I hear you say it was on there? Because I just scrolled through, and I it looked all like a PDF to me. Is there any way I could get that Excel emailed to me?

Yeah. So we we do only post it as a PDF, but, yes, we can, find a way to get you that format.

Okay. And and you can lock it up. I mean, I just I find it easier to work with Excel. That's just how I I work. So thanks.

So, Jenna, we, you know, we ran through all these policies kind of one by one a couple months ago, and then it looks like then they were put into this this section. Are they verbatim from what we went through, or has any of them has any of the wording changed that that you know off the top of

your head on

these?

We have made no edits except for that one additional one I just mentioned. So our, you know, we are bringing forward the recommendation from the community advisory group that we worked with, which means we are that is what we're moving forward. So, yeah, so we've made no edits, since we last reviewed these with you all.

Okay. And then, just as someone who thinks that these targets are very aggressive, in in the new policy and and given by the state Yep. There's no penalty, though. I mean, if we don't By putting this in here, we're not self penalizing ourself if if we don't achieve those targets, are we?

You know?

So so on the on the new policy, we've got pretty aggressive targets for the greenhouse gas reductions. By putting in this policy in the comp plan, does that introduce any sort of penalization whether by the state or or or anything if we don't achieve those targets?

So I'll start and then see if Chris wants to add anything. You know, so it is it's a guiding policy, so it's something we would be working it should be guiding us to work towards trying to achieve this. The legislation, we have to report every five years to the Department of Commerce on our progress. I believe the legislation also has requirements for commerce to be reporting to the legislature, and it has some language that I don't remember exactly, but it basically says commerce can tell local governments additional things we should be doing. But that's about as far as the legislation goes.

So there's no, there's nothing spelled out in the legislation, in terms of the consequences if we fall behind. I mean, I think we have some assumptions of what could happen, you know, but that that's basically what the that's my takeaway from what the legislation says. But I don't know, Chris, if you wanna add anything in terms of this as a policy and the empathy.

So are these county wide planning policies, or are they just planning policies?

Yeah. So this one here would be a just for the unincorporated county twenty year planning policy. We do have a higher level, more general one that is a we have a countywide one, but it's it just mentions the net zero by 2050, in that one.

Okay. Well, that's always a hard question. One of the reasons that people can appeal a comp plan adoption or amendment is if what we do when we amend or adopt is contrary to state law. We can be appealed if we do something that's forbidden by state law, and we can be appealed if we don't do something that's required by state law. So how that meshes with these twenty year planning policies is, as I say, that's that's an interesting question.

In a prior comp plan amendment that wasn't the county's comp plan amendment, it was La Sender's, LaSender was held to be noncompliant because their amendment was contrary to our county wide planning policies, the big broad ones. But the growth board ruled that, violating Arges' twenty year planning policies wasn't sufficient violation to to make them noncompliant. That's I wouldn't want to bet that we would get the same result. Or I I wouldn't wanna bet on the result for the same question either direction.

So kinda what I'm gathering is that this goal helps bring us closer to some of the requirements that the state is imposing?

I think that's that's the general idea. So with regard to these particular changes, the questions are going to be, is it enough so that we've done what they told us to do, or is it not enough? And that or is it too much? You know? It's it's one of those things.

I don't see these particular policies as being violative. What will happen in the future that, you know, I think this is an area that's going to be changing at both the state and local levels and possibly the national level. Well, yeah, the national level for a long time. So as to what will happen in the future, oh, kind of it depends. But I I think this fits what we've been told to do now.

Yep. And I had one other thought as I was remembering. As you were talking, there is also some language in the legislation around it's tied to best use of best available science. And if you don't, essentially, if you don't only have policies that exactly match what Department of Commerce suggests as model policies, you need to be able to accomplish at least as much as what they recommend. So, so there's a bit of, like, you need to be able to so so we've done some modeling of the policies and stuff, but but commerce is modeling that we can get to net zero by 2050.

Right? So they sort of anyway, so that's, like, the expectation. But as Chris said, I think we just there's a lot of unknowns and Right. Yeah. That are forthcoming. So

It's hard to try to balance. You know, they trying to reduce 45% in five years, but also having the large population growth projected, it it everything's conflicting. It Because you you bring more people in, we'll work on it. There's gonna be more greenhouse gases just Yeah. Baseline. So Yeah.

You know,

it's it's clearly

and there's a lot that's not quite in our control. Right? But we know, like, the the utilities mandate helps us. Like, right, they have to, the electric utilities have to be, completely clean energy. They have a timeline. So there's some there's, like, all these intersecting different laws, which is kind of fascinating, but it's been very challenging, for what we have to do. But, yeah, it's complicated.

Yeah. No. No. It it I I understand the incorporating this goal. It just seems like it's definitely gonna be one of the more difficult ones to achieve.

Agree.

Jenna, this is Jack Maroon. But we haven't really we haven't you haven't, like, overshot the state. I mean, it's like you were just we're trying to hit the compliance, but we're not trying to go, hey. We're gonna be city Vancouver and Right. So twenty years less.

Right. So city Vancouver does have a very ambitious target. I think maybe one of the most ambitious in the state. The no. So there are, there's another piece of legislation that has the state's targets, and so it is getting to net zero by 2050. And then there's a few interim targets. I think it's the 4570% match the states. And so we put in the other five year increments because we're like, well, we have to report every five years. So we we we picked the middle point to fill that in. But, yeah, we matched the with the state's numbers. Yeah.

I've got a question for Chris. Are you done, Jack?

Yeah. My my one other comment was the addenda that you were referencing. Can we link that to our website to the planning commission so we can Yes.

It it is up there now.

Up there now? Yes. I misunderstood. Yeah.

Alright.

Go ahead, Mark.

Okay. Chris, this is a question for you. Thinking about, you know, this is a statewide, and we're one of a handful of counties that have to do this so early. Is there a precedent in that, let's say, the Seattle area, King County, that they're usually the first ones looked at due to their population, or is does that hold any water?

So there is a timeline for every county in the state to get its amendments in the periodic review and update finished.

Right.

The Puget Sound area and, in particular, the four big counties there, Snohomish, King, Pierce, and Kitsap. They're in the first group. Clark County is in the second group. So I assume they have to do theirs first, but some of these laws have changed the time frame. Personally, I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to them because they're not us, and we haven't gotten decisions out of the growth board on them yet.

We've got decisions on their housing changes, but not on this.

And I can add, in this legislation was passed we are the first wave. So the King the Puget the folks who updated their comp plans a year ahead of us, they have they're actually the last they now are the last to have to meet this climate legislation because it passed, they were in the middle of their comp plan update. So there's there yes. There have been no appeals yet, that I know of, tied to h b eleven eighty one, for those of us who have the 2025 due date. So, anyway, I mean, had this passed a few years earlier, they they probably would have.

Up within sixty days of the new year, that's for the jurisdictions that are finishing in December 2025, that's when we could expect to see appeals come in. But it'll be a while before those are decided. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions?

K. Excellent. Thank you, Jenna. We'll move on to the, ag study review. Jose?

Okay. So what we wanted to do is just share with you, sort of a high level overview of the ag land study. The county, hired Eco Northwest to do an ag line study in a very, condensed time period. I think we went out to bid in maybe May, had them come on in July with a completion deadline of November 4. So the report was due November 4.

They delivered the report. As part of the process, we had, there were. Two open houses and then we had three meetings with the agricultural advisory commission. And then they had a meeting where they made recommendations to council. Essentially, report was looking at all of the areas, outside of the urban growth boundaries that are currently zoned agriculture and all of the areas, that are not designated forest or mining.

So all the R five, R 10 and R 20 properties. And that was kind of their study area. So they in the report that they provided, they looked at, kind of both of those areas sort of combined. And then they provide they whittle that down into an area they thought could meet the criteria. And so the high level summaries that they were able to, validate the existing designation for most of the existing ag designations and found that there's a lot of areas that aren't designated ag that could potentially meet that designation.

And so that's pretty much the gist of the report. They were looking at the, whack criteria, and doing an analysis of all of those. And the report includes, all of that information. The presentation we provided with you was the presentation that, was given to counsel, after the report was released, to to go over the findings. After that work session, we, had a meeting with the agriculture advisory commission, and, they discussed kind of the report and the outcomes of the report and made a recommendation to council to not, designate any of the existing agricultural land unless there was a process to designate additional, agricultural land.

Essentially, were listen to their conversation. It was they were trying to get to a sort of a no net loss policy, recognizing that there were some lands that could have been added, but the the discussions, making those designations, would have been a challenge as part of this process. So that was the recommendation that they made to counsel, and we'll be sharing that with them shortly. I think that's all I have.

Jose, don't forget the open houses. Yeah.

Mention those. Yeah. Two of those and yes. Yeah.

And we received a great deal of public comment and information at those two open houses, each of which was held in battleground. Yep.

Yeah. So what's the BART here? Because I've been staffing the ag commission and helping Jose on the backside of this. Only thing I was thinking to add, what Chris was saying, what's posted on the on the planning commission website right now, that's the comments from the open houses only. So we've had, quite a few comments to directly to the comp plan comment page that touched either or completely about the ag study or touch it.

So, don't that's not just the the sole universe of ag study. That's the open houses. And, in addition, what, the conversation at, on the November 19 where they were working on a recommendation to counsel, that was a robust and long enough conversation that I suggested that we form a a a committee of of three or four of the members, to synthesize more com because there was more information that they were struggling to put into recommendation form. And so we are doing that right now. We met with that group on Monday, and we're and we're soliciting more comments from them and hoping that the next special meeting on December 17, if they choose to create more the commission chooses to create more recommendations, that will be the time to do it, and we can have more of a packaged group of ideas for them.

So sorry to interrupt, Jose, but that's kind of the state of play with the Ag Commission.

And just as a little more background, the reason we undertook this ag study is because some of the jurisdictions were proposing expansions of their UGA's in by bringing in resource lands. And in order to consider that, a countywide x study had to have been done. And so that was the what precipitated the study. Council initially gave direction to do that last December and then changed their mind and then went back and did it. So that's why.

Council initially took the recommendation at the Planning Commission, which was, you know, offered in an amendment at a Planning Commission hearing to do a resource land study of all resource lands in the county, and counsel changed that to, and adopted a, direction to study ag land rather than also forest land and mineral resource land. And I think that was, you know, I I shouldn't speculate, and this may be just speculation, but my guess is that that was because the areas that were being proposed to be brought into the urban growth boundaries were largely ag lands. Correct.

Yep. And I'm ready for questions.

Mark, any questions?

No. I don't.

So, Jose, you kinda answered my question. I was gonna ask for a little bit more background on this. Could you maybe speak on where or which jurisdictions and kinda where they're looking to designate?

Sure. So the center is proposing expansions to, sort of the North, along I 5 where there's some ag land and then south, on the West side of I 5, yeah, so southwest of their UGA.

And and this varies by alternative. Right?

Yes. For LaCenter, I think in alternative two, there were, an alternative two and three are the same. We, also added, property owners at site specific requests, and some of those were adjacent to the lands that, LaCenter was proposing. So you'll see larger areas, but that's not something that LaCenter proposed. But it shows us an alternative three, as larger, expansions into resource lands.

Cameras, had two, two alternatives and, one just had a limited, expansion into resource lands, and that's on the the West side of I 5 north of their existing UGA boundary. And then in alternative three, they include that property and then some properties just to the east along the northern existing UGA, north yes, northeast of the existing UGA's. And then there was a property, small donut hole that's sort of, surrounded by urbanization. And I think it was it was brought in previously, but wasn't annexed. Think the property didn't want to pay the attorneys to do be part of that.

And so that was left out when the. When the annexation occurred and so when the annexation occurred, the, the appeal of that, the designation essentially was found moot and so that property was left out. And it's just the the remnant of that.

Are you the G Creek in Ridgefield, is that?

Yeah. Well, no. No. No. It's there's another that's that's a separate that's a separate

Oh, okay.

Donut hole. That's that's yes.

I I feel know what

you're talking specific property that is a little further south of that. Yep. And then in rich fee no. In alternative three, there's a proposal to bring in, a large acreage of of land for residential development that was part of their alternative three, and it's, close to the boundary with. Since we were doing that, they I think the property owner had contacted the city and the city included that.

There were, site specific requests that were made, along the Vancouver UGA. So there are proposals to add resource lands, in the 5th Plane Creek Corridor, abutting the existing UGA, like, further north, along 1 82nd. And trying to think of oh, the the Anderson Dairy Farm along 1 62nd, abutting the city limits of Vancouver city limits, was another area. And then there were some some ag requests that weren't, necessarily a budding or adjacent to, any UGA. And so those were all, the sites since they were all site specific requests, they were part of alternative three.

And then, I guess, just one more quick question. So it sounds like there's quite a few parcels then that that would need to be d designated.

Yes.

What would be the process of if you're trying to go for a net zero loss, you or would the county look at larger r five, r 10 parcels and and try to pull those into an an ag 20? Or

Well, I the the nets the the no net loss, I think, is something that the that the ag, commission was contemplating.

I think that's a goal. I Pardon don't think that he, presented any methodology or strategy for doing that. They just, oh, if there's some taken out, we want some to put in. Right.

And that was from ECO Northwest, or that

was No. That's from the Ag Commission.

Okay. Yeah. So they they recognized

ECO Northwest, to be clear, made no recommendations.

Right.

Just did their data. They did their maps. They decided where the maps and the data made sense so that they should be talked about in terms of being a a a criterion and where they didn't. But they didn't say, this is what you should do with this.

Yeah. I get I I'm a little confused because I you know, this this egg study kind of is what has derailed the whole process of getting the the comp plan in. And but but there's no you know? So so we're required to do this, but then and where does it go from there? You know what I mean? It just kinda seems like we get some recommendations and then move forward.

And and it's really an input for the council to consider in their, selection of a preferred alternative. So you have now this study that was done. So if you're considering these resource lands that were being proposed, now you have data to justify or not justify your actions. And so that's really what's what the intent of that report is there for, and and it's needed to be able to help support, the findings for for that decision.

Okay. No, no, thank you. That's helpful. I just want to make sure I have a full understanding before we go into the meeting next month kind of start discussing all this.

I would suggest actually reading the ag land study. It's a bit of a slog, but there are a lot of maps and pictures, which helps. And the questions that it raises and the information that it gives, I think, are really helpful.

It'll be some good Christmas reading.

Oh, yes.

It was the night before Christmas. Could you define me? Like, what does it validate mean? Is it validate ag lands. What is what is validate, and what was the criteria for validation?

Well, I think that's just a term based on what they found. I think it was 90 something percent of the existing ag land still meets the designation criteria. So that's we're applying that based on that. So I don't think you'd find that in the study. That's just Right. Interpreting that.

One of the things that I I didn't see in the study, and I was kinda so I wanna see it like a validate because there's kind of the economic the validation, like like Validation is just my term,

you don't you'll find anywhere else.

Yeah. No. Because they didn't my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, they didn't look at water availability for ag land, which is a pretty big driver for

They did.

What's that?

They they did include that. It's not a requirement. It's not a WAC criteria. So what's not spelled out in the WACs of the state doesn't require you

to That's why I was clarifying. So so they did include

the availability. Yeah. I think there was discussion both with the the Ag Commission, and the Ag Commission was looking at that from, sort of the perspective of if land has water right, you don't want to de designate that because of the value it has.

And further, if it's not designated, you want to designate it

Yes.

Because of the value that it has. Right. So that's one that goes both ways. When you look at the ag study and you see the water rights map there, it it may pop out to you that there's a whole lot of parcels in the county that have water rights that are not designated as ag.

Okay. And then, was there any economic viability component to the agricultural study? Like like like, has it is there a likelihood that it could ever work No. Functional?

It it's not a it's not a requirement because the the the way that the whack criteria are you don't even have to be using the land for farming. So that that's it's just not an issue. But the legal cases on that are paramount, and it's just not not a criteria.

Neither the current use and management of the land nor plans for the future in terms of managing the land are considered when you consider whether it's agricultural land or not. There's one of the that's a big Supreme Court case from, I don't know, '98 or something. And

So just to just stop, just clarify. The so it's not it 's not whether or not the question is, could you grow corn there? Not could you will it ever grow corn there? Because it won't make financial sense. It's the could you.

Again, things change. It's, you know, it's it's not necessarily entirely predictable what kind of farming might be viable, say, twenty, thirty years from now. But if it's under concrete, it's not gonna be viable for things that require soil. And it is very much soils focused.

Makes sense. Any other questions?

I think we have one more section, I think, with the population.

Yes. The capacity. So there are two documents. One is the go to the housing one first. So this is a All of this information is in the DIS in multiple locations.

So we put it together in one, spreadsheet. So you can see across for each jurisdiction what the, housing target is and then what each of the alternatives, shows as capacity. And then the green boxes show the, whether there's a. Surplus or deficit and then, the totals at the bottom. There are and then some notes, at the bottom there.

Kind of the big Takeaways are that, several jurisdictions have a very large surplus and alternative two. We have a surplus of 38,000 units Alternative three, it's 45,000. And we really need to stay within the allocation that was made. We've, had discussions with the jurisdictions. For some of them, part of this exercise in trying to, increase capacity for meeting those income band targets necessitates increasing your densities.

And so for some of those jurisdictions, you can see that they may not be proposing any UGA boundary expansion, yet their capacity is increased. And that could be from changes in zoning, zoning, looking at adding mixed use overlays. I think Ridgefield is one that, you know, they're also proposing expansion, but even without that they have, think, yeah, an alternative too. They have a surplus, but the even without that expansion, there's still, like, 3,000 surplus units, and I think that's in the notes. Vancouver primarily has the largest, and so we're gonna be meeting with them.

So the cities are they're of they're struggling with, you know, they've done this, taken these actions to try to comply with this, and they can't reduce their they're they're having a hard time figuring out how to reduce their overall capacity while still having enough capacity at these higher with this increased density that essentially are required to do, particularly Vancouver, canvas and where. Because of the statutes, they're going to have to allow duplexes and four plexes. I think in Vancouver's case, six plexes, you're within, like, high capacity line. So it just increases the numbers. For some of them, they're pretty significant.

And those jurisdictions aren't really looking at expansions and even without including their expansions there, they have excess capacity. So those are some of the things that we're trying to reconcile. Some of the jurisdictions are discussing. And I think in the employment, talk to that, but, like, I think there's not really not an issue for trading because there there's so much so many of the jurisdictions are overcapacity. But I'll I'll there's there's a slightly different thing with the employment that I can get to. Do you have any questions about the housing before we get to the employment?

Or

I I do. On the on the capacity issue Mhmm. Is the assumption or capacity if they if they zone it a bill take a city block and they've zone it for up to 220 feet, which some of our our new zoning is or something like that, underneath this the city's proposed stuff that's coming up. Is the assumption based upon a full utilization of that 220 feet that those are gonna be built. So it's a 100%.

Because a lot of times you go, oh, I could build a a one house or I could build six houses here. So does is this is the city assuming six units for every available spot even though they could like, somebody might just build one unit? So they'd be getting one sixth of what their actual capacity

I think or it's

is there a percentage reduction? Or

Well, so we let the jurisdictions, so the assumptions are varied. For some, like, let's see, I was thinking about Schugel. You know, because of the legislation that allows for two eighty use. And then on top of that, the, the duplex that can be built. So it's similar.

You could potentially do for, I think they're trying to balance that and sort of trying to be realistic with what what they could do. And even with some jurisdictions that are, you know, you have a density range and okay, minimum max or somewhere in the middle for the single family. Typically, we will see the densities hit the max pretty. That's pretty consistent. Right.

So a lot of these are allowed in single family zones. But, yeah, I don't know that that that they're looking at the max, from what I've seen. I know what we're using is some something that falls in the middle because, you know, I can assume that everything gets built out at so yeah. Yeah. Mark? Alright. Alright. So let's take a look at the employment. The, again, sort of same format. And those overall, these are the the numbers for employment that requires land and the bottom half of that column.

The first job target, the work from home, construction in the field, government and rural. Those are the the jobs that don't fall into that category for a number of reasons. The government jobs because the model excludes all publicly owned land. So for the jobs that need a land base, those are the surplus and deficits. The issue with, I think, Washougal that I noted there is that their existing UGA's have multiple areas with business park employment zoning.

And they did a a sub area plan and now sub area plan at the end of the 2016 process. That was just never incorporated in the the county UGA's subsequent to that. But most of that land essentially they're viewing as residential land. So that's part of their increase in, capacity. And so they were because of that, they were essentially over allocated employment because it's based on the existing, vacant lands model.

So they've been having conversations with, the city of Vancouver that has excess employment capacity about absorbing their deficit of employment. And I think the city is having maybe conversations with other jurisdictions. So, as we move through this process, the cities are still are trying to grapple with, these these issues of excess and, possibly changing some of their density assumptions. I know we've gotten some new information from, Lisandro and Richfield. So we'll be running the model on on some some changes, to their densities to see if they can come closer into line with, with the targets.

So

I've just been curious as we've been talking through the employment. Does you know, we kinda have a a different situation here than most of the jurisdictions where a lot of people are either commuting into Portland or commuting around. Does the model take this into effect when it comes to employment? Because we're talking about a shortage of employment land, but, you know, like, up by the fairgrounds, we've got a huge area that's zoned for business park and then has never really seen any development. And so I would hate to see us designate too much towards unemployment lands using a model that doesn't really take into account a lot of the travel into Oregon, you know, here.

So I think the alright. So the when we begin the planning for this, the objective is to try to increase the number of jobs that we have on this side of the river to try to reconcile, like, having a one to one household jobs ratio because we're under that. I think we're point nine two. So that's kind of the the target is to increase that. So in the model doesn't really take into account commuting patterns.

It just looks at the land that's zone business park, and we apply a density number to that. So along the fairgrounds, most of that, property designated business park is within the industrial model, which assumes like nine jobs per acre. Commercial is 20 jobs per acre. Those are really the two density assumptions. And, yeah, so that that that's how we're

So you said those, it's taken in it it's taken into account what our current household to job ratio is and then trying to build, you know, build it up a little bit, but it does Like, do take that into account, it sounds like. Yeah. Like, we

usually get an a forecast from, the labor security department, you know, trying to typically, the council has wanted to have a more aggressive approach to jobs and having more land available for employment. And so that usually we get a higher number of jobs. And I know that when they when the employment security department does their analysis and gives us, jobs estimate for, like, 2045, and they, provide us estimates of growth. If we're taking this aggressive stance and are going to provide more land for it, they give us a breakdown of what, what those types of jobs are. Well, there there there's existing categories, but what the increases would be over time in in those different, employment categories.

It's in one of our documents from 2023 that I can I can share with you so you can see what those look like? But

yeah. Okay.

Thank you. Mhmm.

Mark, did you have any?

No. I don't.

Jose, was there anything else you needed to add or would like to

Just let's see. Just a reminder, we're having the meeting, the joint hearing with council January 8. Trying to figure out how to set up the room and all that stuff. We're gonna have a work session with counsel the day before, again, to give them sort of bring them up to speed on the overview. What we expect is, we wanna structure it so that staff is making a presentation.

We're gonna have the cities also present what they're they've done a lot of work with their jurisdictions. I think they've got preferred plans. So what we want to do is sort of an extension of the staff presentation would include what the city's preferred plans are so you can hear from them and ask questions of them what, you know, how these things are are reconciled and how their plans meet, what what what our targets are, And then to hear from the public, I would anticipate we'll have a lot of public comment. Typically, we I mean, we have We've set aside the, hearing on the fifteenth, for, you know, deliberations if necessary, depending on the amount of public testimony that that, that comes on the on the eighth. We'll dictate.

I wanna keep you all night, but I would I would suspect that the deliberations would probably be on the fifteenth. But so you're prepared.

And that that's a 06:30 Yes. Hearing? Okay.

And it's Thursday, January 8. Correct? Yes. Okay.

Alright.

Any other comments from the commission or members? That's it. CNN. We're adjourned. Thanks, everyone.