Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

6:02. Hello. Okay. Thank you. It is 6:02 p.m. and I call the April 8th, 2025 regular meeting of the Franklin County Planning Commission meeting to order. Uh, will planning staff please call please call roll and announce whether or not we have a quorum. Remy Doo here. Manny Gutierrez here. Stacy Knight here. Mark Dutder here. Mike Vincent here. We have a quorum. Thank you. I will now lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All righty. Okay. I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting. So moved. Second. Okay. So, moved by Commissioner Knifton, seconded by Commissioner Dutder. All in favor? I. I. Okay. Approval of minutes. I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes from the December 3rd, 2024 meetings. So moved. I will second. Okay. Moved by Commissioner Knifton, seconded by Commissioner Gutierrez. All in favor? I I I motion passed. Introduction of staff. Will staff in attendance please

introduce yourselves? Jim Bellammore, planner 2. Rebecca Gilly, service administrator. Wes McCart, director. Nicole Stikney. I'm with AHBL. We're an on call planning consultant to the county. All righty. Thank you. It is now time for the public hearing portion of our meeting. Good evening and welcome. Here are the ground rules for tonight's hearing. Inperson public testimony will go first. Each person will be called upon to speak during their allotted in-person public testimony section. Please state your name for the record and your position on the proposal. We will then proceed to any online public testimony. Again, please state your name for the record and your position on the proposal. Remember to please mute your audio when not speaking. Email comments received during the public hearing will be read into the record by staff after the online testimony section of the hearing. All comments shall be addressed to to the planning commission and shall be relevant to the application. Each speaker shall have five minutes to provide public testimony and shall speak into the microphone. Please avoid repetitive comments and please be respectful of each speaker. Avoid personal attacks or disruptive behavior. Are there any questions regarding the public hearing ground rules? Seeing none, turning for a moment to our commission members. Let's keep in mind that we are prohibited by law from communicating with members of the public on the subject matter of these hearings except in these hearings. We also may not participate in a decision in which there is an appearance of conflict of

interest to the average person. So let's take a minute to consider as to the matters which are before us for for the hearing today. Whether or not we had any exparte communications, whether we have any ownership interests in the properties, whether we have any business dealings with proponents or opponents of the matters, or whether we have business associates or immediate family who may be either benefited or harmed by a decision in these matters. Are there any commission members who have a declaration at this time regarding any of the items on the agenda? I have a declaration. known the Underwood family for about 25 years, but I have no interest in uh from in any direction uh with the business that they're uh proposing here. So, I didn't see any reason to recuse myself from this meeting. Um, anybody else? I mean, my only other um my declaration I know um Harpster Land Development, Peter Harpster pretty well. I don't have any business association with him, so I don't see any reason to recuse myself either. Okay. Okay. Is there anyone in the audience this evening who would object to any commission member hearing any of the items on the agenda? Seeing none, let the record show there were no objections. Okay. The order of the hearing will be as follows. Planning

staff shall provide a staff report. The commission may ask questions of staff. the applicant or applicant's representative. Uh, presentation, in-person public testimony, online public testimony, email public testimony read into the record by staff, final staff comments, if any, close the public testimony and planning commission discussion, deliberation of the proposed action. Are there any procedural questions before we begin the public hearing? Okay. So, item number one is a public hearing for file PUD204-01/EPA 2024-24, the Underwood PUD. The application is for a planned unit development PUD to divide it into two parcels. Parcel number 126-210-022 and number 126-210-028 comprising a total of 151.99 acres in size into 123 single family residential lots. The average lot size is approximately 36,71 square feet with the smallest lot proposed being 21,788 square ft in the rural community 1 RC1 zoning district. I declare the public hearing for POD 2024-01 SEPA 2024-24 to be

open at 6 uh 610 p.m. May we have staff present the staff report, please? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, U. Planning Commission members and audience. My name is Nicole Stikney. I'm with AHBL. We are a consulting firm um offices here in Pasco and um as I mentioned from time to time, we do um consulting work for the county and uh this includes the on call planning services contract that we have. So it was my pleasure to prepare this um presentation for you tonight. So what you're considering is a planned unit development. Um it is on ground that is currently um either farmed or um just not being used. Um it it's comprises quite a bit of acreage as was described. Um the parcel numbers were read into the record by uh the chairman but they are also shown here on the screen. As he mentioned the zoning is rural community 1. That signals that that typically has a minimum 1acre lot size. Uh but we'll be talking a little bit about that um in regards to the PUD development. The comprehensive plan has a land use designation of rural shoreline development. It's known in that area as a local area of more intensive rural development or a lamarit. And so that's just a a pocket where um it's not designated as agricultural um but this development is able to occur and the zoning does implement this comprehensive plan um land use designation. I also wanted to note that a portion of the parent parcel uh to the west is within shoreline jurisdiction. That's the westernmost portion only. And if you uh look on the plat, you can see um there's a line showing the approximate boundary

of that shoreline area. It is 200 ft um landward from the ordinary high water mark at the Columbia River. This property um with the two parcels together is um o just over 150 acres in size. Uh so the location it's generally located west of the intersection of Columbia River Road and Frasier Road. Um this is proximate to and bounded to the west by the Columbia River. And uh as stated, the request is to allow the division of land creating 123 single family residential lots. This planned unit development would feature a group A public water system. There would be individual sewage um septic systems on each site. 15% open space is proposed with some limited amenities in that. Uh if you take the measurement that the um applicant provided, it's about 23 acres um in open space and they have proposed construction in phases. Here's a map so we can all orient ourselves. Um so and I'm I was forgot to check my pointer. Oh, I do have a pointer here. Okay, so this is a previous development known as Underwood Estates. This is already platted. That's why you can see the parcel numbers there and development is beginning. Um the two parcels that we're talking about tonight I'm outlining now. And so as you can see the the biggest parcel is mostly um in irrigated agricultural uses right now. Whereas the other smaller parcel is along the shoreline edge. It's um got really pretty steep topography and it is not being farmed and it is not irrigated.

I wanted to call it the roads here. This is Columbia River Road running north and south uh but not perfectly north and south. Um this uh little road here is called Taylor Road. Taylor Lane, excuse me. And Frasier Road is right here. And now I'm showing the proposed layout. And I just wanted to emphasize for you where these two um parcels are so you can see what's included and then what's kind of surrounding as to this plat map. So as I um mentioned before, whoops, go back up over here. This um area that I'm circling is uh already developed out um as lots. They each have their own wells. That's the circles that you see is the the well radius to protect the land around the wells. Um, this development is not proposed to have um individual wells. Instead, it's going to be, as I mentioned, a group A water system. If I go to the next slide, you can just see um the plat map as it was provided. And then I'm going to show you the phasing just to give you a quick idea um about how the development would occur. It's going to be um in different chunks, if you will. And so that lots can be um created and then marketed um as time goes by in these individual phases. Um and typically we wouldn't have any standards saying you know if the developer uh can combine these phases they could do like phase one and two at the same time typically for a final plat um and so on and so forth. But uh but the idea then is that they come in with individual construction plans um and can take down the development in time um as they need

to. Um also just wanted to share this phasing table. So this shows the different um proposed phases. Again they could be they could be combined but they've um envisioned it in up to eight phases. And this shows the um list of how many residential lots would be created for each phase as well as they've called out the tracked areas that would be um created either in part or in whole with each of the phasing um parts and then the tracked table to the bottom here which is also in your packet. Um this shows the different tracks um that are labeled on the plat map as proposed and the different usage and a calculation of the lot of the area for each tract. In total, um just under 38 acres are proposed to be um in those tracked areas. This slide shows their proposal for the right of way. So, they're requesting um a bit of a change up in terms of how much a rideway would be uh proposed. That's called out here. Um but they're we're looking at 50 ft of public rideway. Uh this is the center line here. you'd have a clear zone on each side and then um this shows what the path alignments would look like um where they would be providing separated paths. So, it's kind of like having a sidewalk, but you don't have a curb and a gutter. Instead, you have an asphalt path on either side. Um and again, it's it's offset from the roadway. Um, I wanted to highlight the different SEIPA DNS mitigation measures that were um, uh, circulated out for comment um, and entered into the record as part of the SEPA DNS. Um, and I'll note that there were no appeals of the SEIPA determination of non-significance and

SEIPA is the state environmental policy act. So this is a requirement that we um run through SEIPA and do environmental review on these types of projects. So the first one is um BMP which stands for best management practices. Uh best management practices for dust control need to be employed. This would be uh things like watering the site and uh planting vegetative cover if something's been um if the top soil's been removed uh to to control that so that erosion doesn't occur. These this is summarized by the way. The more detailed language is in your packet. Second, um a professional archaeological survey is required, but we did um specify there's an exception. They don't have to do an archaeological study all the way down the banks of the Columbia River where they're not going to be doing any ground disturbance. Instead, the archaeological survey would be limited to the areas where ground disturbance um is more likely to occur. A group A public water system and operational fire hydrants are going to be required before any lots can be um sold to the public. A drainage system is needed to capture and dispose of all storm water runoff on site. Uh next, Franklin County's clean air and dust control measures must be used. Number six, there was a geotechnical report produced for this project and uh it's important that they follow those recommendations particularly for the uh site conditions out there with steep slopes um and any of the findings they had about the the soil and uh compaction requirements, things like that. Next, fabric um and river rock or other landscaping material needs to be provided from the edge of the pavement um or curb if there was a curb to the unimproved portion of the ride ofway. Um this is just to uh limit the amount of county maintenance that needs to occur um in those areas around uh the roads

that would be dedicated to the public. And next, if the water system for some reason doesn't receive approval, the plat would need to be revised. It would basically be a doover from what I can tell, but we have that um requirement in there in case that does not work because then it changes the whole proposal. Oh, and I want to go back real quick and mention that there is um this one area to the north where they're proposing a private road and this private road would be used to access um the lots in phase 4. Um but everything else would be that our roadway would be dedicated to the public. All right. So, we did um receive um several or many public comments um on this proposal. I'll go over some of the public comments and then share agency review notes with you. Um to start off, it's important to note that we did a SEPA notice of consultation to begin with. So instead of just going straight out with the DNS um and and publishing a checklist uh and making findings and everything else, we first did a notice of consultation because we were looking for comments broadly from agencies or from the public um having an interest in this proposal so we could gather information and uh in in that stage several comment letters were received. They are applicable to this project. Um, we heard concerns and questions pertaining to lot access, storm drainage and sewage. Uh, the minimum lot sizes were was of concern and the proposed perimeter walls were also of concern. Um, some comments that we received from p the public was in opposition to the development. There was a um concern about conversion of land that was previously used for farmland being um transferred over to residential uses. road impacts were were raised as an objection and it was also um said that

it was uh general generally incompatible um between farmland and the existing uh farmland areas out in the area and residential uses. Now after the SEPA notice of consultation went out, they did revise and modify their plat. And what they did is they changed the lot configuration so that there would be um fewer or actually no lots in shoreline jurisdiction. They they redrew it so that um all of the shoreline area would be in a tract. So I wanted to emphasize that. And then the other change up was that there was a u revised sepha checklist that was also um circulated once we got to the next stage which was an actual sepha notice of DNS and public hearing. So using all the comments that we received and looking at this um we did take the next step which was to um issue the determination of non-significance um which was by the uh SEIPA lead official our new director Wes McCart and um that was set out with findings and that listing of conditions that I just listed that notice of DNS was also a joint uh notice for this public hearing tonight. All of the letters and emails included throughout this um stretch of time are included in the report together with a late a letter that was dated March 25th from a neighboring land owner. That was the most uh recent thing that I saw come in. Um additional comments can be entered into the record of course at this hearing and you've had an opportunity to look at those written comments that were um provided during this process. In terms of agency review, I just wanted to highlight um what we heard from the different um agencies that were contacted. Um and there were others that were contacted that did not give responses. So, they're not listed here. Um but they're listed in the staff report. The Pasco School District wrote a letter um and they were concerned

about uh mitigation uh in for the impacts for the extra uh students that would be um going to the schools. And so there's a letter um based on that comment in that packet that you've received. The Cville Confederated Tribes, they are interested in reviewing the archaeological report once it's completed. From ecology, we received a standard letter that was dated December 23rd and that had to do with the SEPA um notice of consultation. um they didn't change their comments at all when we issued the DNS, but we did get another email in from a shoreline planner last week and I'll share that in a minute here. Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife have um written two letters. Uh their con primary concerns were shrubstep environment and impacts to that environment um and habitat of course and uh they they noted some comments about being in the shoreline area. The Benton Franklin Health District um had written a letter uh previously before the applicant applied. They um issued their letter about what the requirements would would be for on-site um septic systems. And so they reiterated those requirements. Again, the US Army Corps of Engineers, they wrote a letter. It really had to do with real estate. It's on the record now, but it's more um for the applicant to um look into. The South Basin Irrigation District, same sort of thing. They had some um comments about contract water usage. Basin disposal had some comments relating to garbage pickup. And we did not um incorporate any requirements for that, but it would be of course in the best interest of the applicant to coordinate with um basin disposal to make sure that that garbage collection can occur as needed. And then public works had a series of comments and um

and and they were related a lot to the configuration of the plat and to um some suggested conditions of approval which I'll get to in a little bit here. So I mentioned that we got an email from ecology a shoreline planner there. Um and I put it on the slide here. Um we can certainly read it into the record when the time um as needed. To summarize, they talked about the goals of the Shoreline Management Act and uh the idea that throughout Washington state, we're looking to provide enhanced public access to the shorelines for recreational, cultural, and educational purposes. And there are specific policies within our locally adopted SMP for Franklin County um concerning these topics. She noted that this planned unit development subdivision would be required to meet public access provisions of the Franklin County SMP. Um she said that tract H um is noted on the plat uh proposed to be reserved for private access only but this is in direct conflict she said with the regulations. Um she's uh she contends that this plat should be revised to ensure public access is provided. um and the face of the plat should be revised to ensure that um tract H would be um available for public access. She also said that um signage would be needed and some other um amenities would be required. We looked at this and we I asked her um why she thought it was triggered because I was aware that the SMP says that if you divide your land into five or more lots in the shoreline does trigger this public access requirement. When I reviewed it, I did not think this was

triggered. Um and that is because this tract with the new configuration, this is tract H. It's this funny shape here. And as you can see, um, the backs of the lots where the houses would be, and I presume the houses would be kind of near the road before it slopes down, um, because the river's over here. This tract would um be fully within um shoreline jurisdiction. The backs of the lots where the um people would buy the for home sites, those would just kind of be right up against that line, but not uh waterward of the shoreline jurisdiction line. So, in my mind, this does not trigger that five uh five lot requirement. um her her take is that all the lots are within um there's no provision that says all the lots have to be within Shoreline jurisdiction. Um she said this plat uh h does have um any of the buildable lots excluded from shoreline jurisdiction. She said but there is still shoreline jurisdiction within the bounds of the parent lot in the project. Therefore the public access requirement is triggered. um just going to disagree with that because even if like an inch was in shoreline jurisdiction, surely we wouldn't say the whole thing was subject to those provisions. Um so uh we are providing this information to you so that you know how we've taken in the comments and uh have chosen not to change any of our recommendations based on these comments from ecology. So with that I'll move on to the suggested findings of fact that are in our staff report. Um, and again, this is summarized up on the screen because this would be very long, each part here, but I just want to uh make sure I um cover these. These are the findings of

fact that are um listed in the uh excuse me, not the municipal code, the Franklin County code. And these are the four different criteria that we look at as we've set out for you in the staff report. Um this comes from chapter 1758090 um section E. So, first uh suggested a finding effect. The PUD development will be compatible with nearby development and uses. Um we noted that there's already three residential subdivisions within a mile radius of the property, including two along the river and one that abuts the site site to the southeast. Um in addition, this property is in on land that's zoned RC1. and it's also bordered to the north and south by land that is in these um RC1 or RC5 districts. Second uh suggested finding fact is that peripheral treatment does ensure proper transition between the PUD uses and the nearby external uses and developments. And for that we noted that the subdivision is going to take access primarily from the Columbia River Road and Frasier Road. Um, and both of those are going to help separate this project from the agricultural uses across the roads. Um, and walls uh will be constructed along the property lines uh that are shared with current agricultural uses. That'll help um mitigate any um nuisent nuisance issues. Um, I'd also pause to remind you that the Franklin County does have a right to farm provision. And uh, that means that people that buy homes out near farmland, they are put on notice that farmland is present and that they're they may be subject to um, farm equipment, dust from agricultural activities, uh, spraying from agricultural activities. Sometimes planes may fly over, all of those types of things. Next, the development will be consistent with the comprehensive plan and the

purposes of the planned unit development district. Specifically, we've noted the property will provide more flexibility than the standard zoning district to allow for open space um including two interconnected parks which are proposed and the project treats environmental features uh sensitively by excluding that uh shoreline from the boundaries of the private residential lots. So, it's kind of preserving that um natural area. And next, the proposed development does feature amenities and design uh that would give that 20% density increase that they are requesting which is offered in the code for these types of projects. And finally, the public health safety welfare has been served. Again, um it's going to have a group a a water system. Uh there will be pedestrian access. There's going to be parks um which is good for health and wellness. uh and those will be connected with pathways. And then additionally, there's facilities to direct and manage the storm water to prevent flooding. Um all of this ensures that public health, safety, and welfare um concerns are being served. Almost done here. So, in terms of suggested conditions of approval, um there's a couple pages in the staff report dedicated to that. Um, first we would require that they comply with the requirements of the Benton Franklin Health District's letter. That really has to do with minimum lot size and requirements uh for putting those uh on-site sewer uh septic systems um for each house. Next, they would need to comply with the requirements of Franklin County Public Works Department. They had a bunch of comments about um well, we need to make sure the name of Frasier um road Frasier Drive. it it needs to be the official name um showing the final plat needs to have closure notes. That's a standard comment that they would give. Um they want notes

on the final plat uh in terms of things like uh future local improvement districts for roads, drainage, curbs and gutters. Um this would basically be a no pro protest arrangement. Um notes that lot owners are responsible for maintenance of drainage ditches or swailes. um if they're if they're next to that. Um and specifically lots 20 through 24 should not have direct access to Columbia River Road or Frasier Drive. Um and it goes on from there, but they've made comments about Culdeac uh design radius um m Oh, and Columbia River Road mitigation fee. I wanted to note that a perl lot mitigation fee of $500 um would be set and would be required for each lot upon development to help um offset uh road impacts. Next, comply with the requirements of the Franklin County Planning and Building Department. And so under our notes, um we've noted that uh an outside or dedicated irrigation system needs to be provided to each lot for the life of the development. Um that way they're not using that group A water system water for their irrigation purposes. During construction on each property, construction debris needs to be maintained on site and properly disposed of and a disclaimer that Franklin County is a right to farm area and that does apply to activities there. Uh next number four all statement all of the statements that are required to be on the face of the plat um need to be either recorded as a restricted covenant or described in detail in the developers covenants. Next the applicant needs to coordinate um with the planning and building department and also the the county's GIS coordinator so that they can get the road names the addresses all lined out. Those addresses and road

names need to be shown on any final plat plat or plat. Um next they need to coordinate with the post office for their mailboxes. Primaril uh preliminary plat approval is always valid for five years following approval of the board of county commissioners. That means they have five years by the time they get that preliminary approval to go through get construction plans um approved, go in and do the site work, the construction out there. Um and then final plat needs to be recorded for any of the phases in a typos. I've corrected it on the screen here. It should read as proposed by the applicant. This project may be a phased development. Number nine, prior to containing the county treasurer signature, applicant needs to uh do the stuff to pay the taxes. Um and number 10, I didn't get it on there. I'm sorry. I apologize for that. But the final long plat just standard requirements. It needs to be prepared by a um licensed surveyor. It needs to be um drawn up according to all of the requirements that are in code. This is our suggested motion. So we are recommending approval um of this of this application. So, as the um planning commission, it would be your job to con further conduct the public hearing, listen to any public testimony um either in support or in opposition to this. Um but at this point in time, based on the information we have, we are recommending a positive recommendation be forwarded to that board of county commissioners. Uh with the suggested findings of fact, conditions of approval as we've detailed in the staff report for you. Thank you. That's it. Okay. Thank you. Does any commissioner have questions of

staff? I have a question. Okay. I assume there's HOA uh almost uh HOA type of a setup for the governance of the lots and that kind of thing. Now the county roads that or excuse me there there's one private road on the plat map. There's also uh you know the main common roads. Are those county roads spec? They are just the specification. However, they have requested a reduction in the right ofway space because they're putting in the um pathways either on one or both sides right in some in some of the sections of the development. Well, my question would be who who maintains the roads also the uh maintenance of the uh fire protection, the fire hydrants uh and common areas who maintains all of that. So that it's different depending on what part we're talking about. So the portion of the roads that are dedicated um to the public, those are those become county roads. Okay. Um now maintenance is done by the county roads department but people are responsible for um the portion the butdding their lot for as described like those swailes or anything like that like if there's a ditch um that is the responsibility of the homeowner to make sure it's not backing up or having issues. Um you asked about the common open spaces. Uh that would be as outlined in the covenants conditions and uh restrictions uh recorded for the homeowners association. Yes. So the HOA is going to take over maintenance of th those areas those common areas. Yeah. Which include uh uh maintenance of fire hydrants. Uh I believe the fire hydrants are going to be in the right of way, but we can uh

let the applicant specify that. I believe the fire hydrants will be in the right of way and it's going to be a part of that group A water system. Um but somebody still has to come in and flush those out and maintain them on an annual basis. Make sure that they're charged and Yeah. and all that. But that's not a county public works responsibility, right? Correct. Uh and also you mentioned the irrigation. Yes. Uh that's is that pressurized irrigation or is there a pond somewhere on site? Um I believe there's a pond because I've seen it in the drawing. I think it was in this one. There's a pond on tract I which is right off of Columbia River Road. So I don't know if it's pressurized system but I can attest that that would be a pond would be present. All righty. That's all I had. Thank you. Any other questions? Does the applicant or the applicant's representative wish to speak or give a presentation? Good evening, Mr. Chairman. Uh, commissioners, it's a pleasure to be able to make a presentation to you again. My name is Mark Ficus. F I CES. My address is 405 East Lincoln Avenue in Yakama. I'm a partner and land use attorney at the Halverson Northwest Law Firm. I've been here quite a few times before. In fact, I think the last time I was here, I was here to help process your very first PUD, the Coler Estates phase 2 PUD. Uh, and there was some confusion with Prior Prior planning staff about the process being used. I'm glad to see you. You um that Nicole's done a great job. Uh West Bart did a good job. I have we have very few disagreements with the professionally

prepared staff report. But since this is our one opportunity to prepare a record, uh both um myself will be speaking and Mr. Peter Harpster, the applicant's project manager. Uh I also have Derek Forza here, the civil engineer to design the plat that can answer any technical questions, maybe some of the ones uh Mr. Vincent that you had earlier. Um, this should be a relatively non-controversial plat. It's really a plat with a PUD overlay. And the only reason my client is applying for a PUD is to in return for some additional open space and public improvements is asking for a slight density bonus. And the only development standards that are being deviated from really are the minimum lot size. So instead of a 1acre lot, most of these lots average 3/4 of an acre. Some are much bigger along the river and some are slightly smaller. That's allowed in your PUD ordinance. Um again, the important thing uh at the outset is there's absolutely no development, not no dirt is going to be turned in the shoreline area within the 200 feet of the ordinary high mark of the Columbia River or any critical area habitat. all the development is going to occur on the Underwoods uplands portion of their property basically that's already being farmed uh for a lot of reasons. I in fact I think I'm going to make a few comments on the agency comments. Some of the agency comments seem to be based on an initial design where there was some confusion whether there would be development um next to the river in terms of disturbing shrubstep habitat or bird habitat. None of that is going to occur. Um so with that in mind um again simple job is you you have recommend recommendation authority you guys don't

need to make a decision but this is a qua judicial hearing you've already gone through the process um again I I'm not going to go over the four general approval criteria I think planning staff in the report have done a good job it's based in part on application material submitted by Mr. Harpster. Um, the criteria has been summarized in pages 4 through six and 11 and 12 of the staff report. And again, I'm not going to repeat those because it doesn't benefit. Um, one thing that's is important is this is already an area that the county commissioners have decided is suitable for residential development. Uh, while I think Nicole got the acronym close, this is in a rural shoreline lamard, a limited area, more intense residential development, which means this is not farmland. It's not agriculturally designated. It's not eggland. It is being farmed, but your county has already identified this area and a lot of the area along the river and south of it from some of the other developments you've already approved as suitable for residential development. There's very little developable land in Franklin County to meet your housing goals and this is one of the largest areas that are available for that purpose. So, we hope you would review the development and the public comments in that light. I'm just going to make a few comments about uh not not specific. I have reviewed the complete record, your 239 page packet. I'm sure you've all committed to memory as well, but there were four people that were opposed to the project and one of them was just general farming conflicts. And again, I point you to what I just said before that this is an area that's already the decision

to that this area is suitable for residential development has already been made by your commissioners. So, and uh as Nicole said, your right to farm ordinance at Franklin County Code 512 already protects farmers from nuisance complaints and conflicts with residential development. So, I think it's with those two things, the farming conflicts, there is no legal farming concepts that can be used as a basis to deny or condition this proposal. The other comment some of the people were concerned about was traffic. Again, your public works department already has reviewed this application and both Columbia River Road and Frasier Road are operating at level of service A. The traffic they're more than adequate to handle the traffic from this development and the county is collecting a $500 perlap mitigation fee that's available to mitigate any traffic impacts. So again, there's no need for additional traffic studies and your roads and the infrastructure will be what's called concurrent, a fancy lawyer word, which means the roads can handle the traffic from the 123 lots that are being created. Um, the only other public comment, one owner I think Mr. Ives owns I don't know Nicole if you could put the map up there but he was claiming that he was worried that he would be denied access to his property along the river. That is not true. He has a 30foot access just south of this project. So Mr. Ives property is not being landlocked. I don't know whether I think he was just mistaken and that certainly could not be a basis. So those are the basically the public comments. I don't see any legal issues that could be used as a base to condition or deny the project. Just some quick comments on the agency comments going over and and supplementing what Nicole went through. The Pasco School

District did present a form letter. It used to it happens with all residential development outside Pasco's urban growth area. This property is within the Pasco school district and they used to require a mitigation fee, a per lot mitigation fee to mitigate the impacts um on school. My understanding and Mr. Harper will submit the the capital facilities plan by the of the school district has been changed and they have dropped the requirement for any mitigation fees. So that is not legally required. Um, the Kovville tribe did request an archaeological or cultural resources survey. Um, I'm going to let Mr. Harpster comment a little bit more detailed, but we are going to ask that this uh, planning commission consider slightly modifying that request. We don't believe that an ar a full-blown archaeological or cultural resources survey is needed for the reason I outlined earlier. No dirt is going to be turned in the 200 foot or the steep slope shrubstep area of the river. The only dirt that's going to be turned is what's already being farmed. What our client would propose, what the underwoods would like is what's called an independent discovery protocol. Um, Mr. Harpster will be submitting a short two or three page summary of what that is. It's basically a policy that when contractors are going out there, how they can identify and look for any, you know, potential Indian artifacts or burial grounds and they would have to stop construction immediately. um that would that's been approved by this board and by the county commissioners in the past on other nearby developments including Underwood Estates uh the 22 lot plat that's owned by the same applicant here and the Coler

Estates phase 2. So, we would like the your recommendation to consider a minor modification to instead of requiring a full-blown cultural resources survey to to allowing independent discovery protocol. There's just again the farm ground has already been turned. It's been disc. The development is occurring on the uplands. Um, the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife did make some comments and again I think I I read both of them. They're the same. I think the department wasn't seeing the modified map that was submitted during the SEPA process. Uh, again, the comments were disturbing bird nesting areas, shrubstep environment. There is going to be no development in there. And he was asking for a bird survey. uh and and construction potentially be limited from February to July. That's not going to work very well for a residential developer. So, we would uh and and those comments I don't think there was any conditions incorporated on that basis. Finally, the last one I just was learned about this about an hour ago, but I agree with Nicole's analysis. Uh there is no jurisdictional basis for the county to require public access to the river. Uh again, no shoreline jurisdiction land is being disturbed. So the shoreline master plan is not applicable. Plus, there's lots of case law. In fact, I think this was the same fact pattern as you might have heard of the Nolan Dolan case from the Supreme Court where developers and counties can't ask for developers to grant public access unless the need for it is caused by the direct impacts of the development. So I would I would hope that there would be no requirement for public access. there's no development on the shoreline. There's no boat launches. There's no uh area that would need public access ac across a residential

development. So, with that in mind, those are the only legal comments I had. Um uh Mr. Harpster would like to make some comments and then I if legal issues arise during the public comment, I'd be happy to answer any questions that the planning commission uh our staff had. So, thank you. And of course, our recommendation is that Nicole's recommendation be the one submitted to the commissioners that that be approved with two modifications. I think you've caught one that it is a phase development and that instead of a cultural resources survey, it be that the uh applicant as contractors use the independent discovery protocol that's been allowed on other developments. Thank you. You would typically call that an inadvertent discover in Yeah. Inadvertent discovery protocol. Thank you. Correct. Good evening, planning commissioners. Peter Harpster, Harpster Land Development. Office address is 5804 Road 90 Sweet C here in Pasco. Uh before I get started with my comments, um I wanted to uh submit for the record a few exhibits. Uh all of them except one are part of your packet, but we did add some markups to help identify um on this one, which I'll pass on in just a second. The red markups here on the side identify where no building disturbing, grading, or clearing will occur. And then um there's a survey showing where Mr. Ives easement access is located. And then our landscaping plan, the staff report had indicated just walking trails and park benches, but we are doing a couple sport courts and small playgrounds. Um, those are the ones that are included in your packet that I wanted to have before you this evening with the highlights on there. And then as Mr. Ficus mentioned, uh, the Pascal School District recently updated their capital facilities plan and we included

that three-page document which was not previously part of, uh, the record. So, who should I give them to for this way? There's seven copies of each document, so it should work out for each uh commissioner to receive one. And then uh uh Mr. McCard and Miss Stney as well. I think there's actually more pages on there. Yeah. Thank you. Sorry, I guess I could have made stacks of all the documents and that would have been easier. Um, as mentioned, I'm here this evening representing the applicant, Mr. Richard Underwood. Um, I do want to thank Miss Stikney and Mr. McCarten's staff for your time spent on this. I think this is the first planning commission meeting since we've had almost 100% turnover and um so sincerely appreciate the time that's gone into this and uh the effort and we're happy to be here today. Um as mentioned the uh third page of the staff report indicated that there was uh a pretty simple landscaping plan and it is simple but um it indicated just native landscaping, walking trails and a few park benches. Um, but as you can see on the landscaping plan, we are including a couple sport courts and then a couple playgrounds in different areas of the development that um are a few phases apart. So, I believe it's phase two or three where the first playground will be built and then one of the last phases will be HOA owned and maintained. Uh, as Mr. Ficus said and I'll be brief with this point. This this area is lo located within the rural shoreline development lamard type one area um which the comprehensive plan for Franklin County describes as being exclusively residential in nature. And so as he mentioned although it is being

farmed now the plan that the commissioners have adopted is uh intending for residential development. I mentioned that because of the entire Franklin County which consists of approximately 850,000 acres only 0.1% uh uh is contained within that uh lamard and of that area most of it's already developed and so uh like the colar PUD that came before you previously and this one this is pretty much the only area of the entire county where you could even do one of these projects. Um, PUD zoning would have allowed, as Mr. Figus mentioned, our average lot size is 0.83 acres. PUD zoning would have allowed an average of half an acre. Um, so this project could have been 183 lots. Instead, we increased the average lot size to be just under one acre and and ended up with the 123 lots that are being proposed before you today. Um with the conditions of approval there the uh as Miss Stikney mentioned it is a phased project. She already corrected that on there. Um regarding the archaeological survey requested by the tribes this is something that probably the last dozen projects that I've been a part of all over Tri Cities not just this area of the county. Um a tribe or various tribes will request a cultural survey or an archaeological survey. And um what has been approved by this planning commission in the past and the county commissioners is instead of an archaeological survey will implement an inadvertent discovery protocol uh plan which I have a copy of here that I can email to uh Miss Stig and Mr. McCart if they desire but I know they're familiar with them already um for two reasons. one, the area that has been um accepted uh ex uh to not do is is the shoreline area where we're already not going to be doing any development. So, we agree with that. But the farmland area has already

been disturbed for several decades. And um so we would ask that like with the last project and the ones before that, um the uh motions made with the modification to allow for an inadvertent discovery protocol. Um, in that map, sorry, I already spoke to that. Um, the last comment I wanted to make was regarding the Pasco School District's comments. Those comments were submitted in December 2024. And just last month, in March, uh, the school district on the advice of their legal counsel revised their capital facilities plan. uh they the district still has an overcrowding problem, but it's not as bad as it was. And so legally, because of the $600 million in bond revenue that they've received since uh the mitigation fee was put in place, they can no longer uh collect it. And so that fee has gone from $4,700 to $0. That's more just anformational piece to share. If they really wanted to collect it, they would have to they would have had to appeal the project through SEPAN. we would have done a mitigation agreement with them like we've done in the past. Uh but it's no longer something that they can require. And then um the the comments I just wanted to address um from Commissioner Vincent, the uh it is a the irrigation is from a pond on site in that uh northeast corner and uh it is pressurized uh and that system is owned and maintained by Richard Underwood. Um the roads will be maintained by public works and the landscaping uh in the tracks and along the roads will be maintained by the HOA and then uh all utilities are privately owned and maintained including the fire hydrants which will be fed from the domestic line so they can be active year round. Um so it just in closing there's it's all boils down to there's four criteria items to approve a planned unit development. Um we meet all four and

with that staff concurs. So, thank you for your time and happy to answer any questions as they come up. Thanks. I got a question, Peter. I know there's a a proposed on um on the statement for the 15% usage of of site open space. Will this HOA development proposed require any kind of retention ponds? I don't believe so. No. Okay. No. The the way that the site is designed will capture storm water without needing to require um uh without placing extra requirements on the individual lot owners. Likely, and this was stated in the public works comments that we had no issues with, uh lot owners will be required to maintain swailes along the frontage of their lots and um that'll handle uh any storm water. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, is there any in in-person public testimony? Uh, either. Yeah. Good evening. My name is Cynthia Muse. I'm a 70-year resident, a Franklin County land owner, farmer farms farm co-arm owner, and also a resident living along the riverfront in Franklin County. the only

small housing development that was oh planned probably 40 years ago by a bunch of Hamford scientists. Uh that puts us at River's Edge uh north of Selflanding Road for sure. And I, you know, if I were able to carry the amount of manuals that we have for the comprehensive planning for the city of Pasco and the county of Franklin, the shoreline management plans that we have for the city, the the county, the state, the core of engineer, uh, McNary pool plans at all repeatedly over and over state about public access to and from the river at periodic locations, especially if they involve critical habitat areas. And that that is not just physical access, but also visual access to and from that river point. And so, you know, when you think of the spacing on where you allow physical and visual access to the river, you think, well, you you go along the ravines and high ridge points and real points of interest along the way that that don't interfere with private property rights. Uh, so that there's some very logical places that also include the critical habitat areas. And I just happened to run across this one recently from the Washington Department of Commerce, uh, critical areas handbook right here, RCW, chapter 4, uh, identifying open space corridors and between and in and around urban growth boundary areas. And this is far out from urban growth boundary. And it's in north of Self-Landing Road, which goes all the way to 395, which is along a township line. and it was still

considered right to farm agricultural areas and it was 1 acre parcels and now we have this coming along the exception to the rule and it's a slippery slope and it's only going to lead to more. We're going to get uh close in dwelling multiple layers. I can just see it coming now. And so it's kind of like where do we draw the line here on on urban growth when there's all kinds of space and area in and around West Pascal that could have all kinds of high density housing development, you know, and I kind of the last time I talked to you people, both county commission and planning commission, we're just talking about greed here because there's no other reason to put in this highdensity kind of developments out in the middle of farm area where people have the right and we know some of those that will be farming for generations to come if they're not completely taken in by wanting to develop their land also or to keeping it agriculturally driven. So I the the wildlife corridors also have a right to access to and from the river and we live right there. Hey, we we get the deluge of of wild activity and they need buffer zones and they need reassurance that they can pass through to their their old uh habitats up and down the ravines especially. And then you say, well, you know, that the um Native Americans have a right. The Callvilles, are you kidding me? All of Franklin County Shoreline people is Yakama Nation Indian Territory and we have a representative I represent two organizations speaking for myself tonight but we have a represent on the tribal council that's concerned about what's happening along the Franklin County shorelines. This has nothing to do with the Calville Indian Reservation. This is Yakama territory.

So um and then you know all the we've worked extensively with the core of engineer meeting out at Ice Harbor Dam to prepare for the recreational opportunities that we have along this river corridor too that will affect this housing development and the to the access to and from that and this highdensity development that have people all needing and wanting to be on River's Edge while we've got a water trail u planned uh for non non-motorized craft and areas where we can get out of those boats and travel up to up through those ravines to have viewpoints and things and to relax. So, we're working very hard to provide for the greater need of the public and not just a bunch of individual greedy concerns that's going to start a precedent here that's going to take over the whole county. So, um and then you ask, well, you live along along the river. Yes, I could have. In fact, four members of our family have lived along the river in residential developments, mostly in West Pasco uh on Court Street, but I could have put my feet up on the window sill and said, "Let them eat cake. I have mine. You It's tough luck for you people to try to get to the river." But no, we've already considered that and and making waypoint stops with these non-motorized things right on our property and the uh Helms Creek Wasteway right next to it as a very interesting spot to stop. So yes, I too have opened my land to public access. So and it's on the record and it will be we'll be publishing those way points and starting at uh Ringled Road and going all the way to Saka Jia Park. the the beautiful waterway and way points that we'll have for non-motorized craft. Oh, let's see. Did I leave out anything else? All the um all the wildlife and stuff need buffer zones. You can't just say this line de

demarcates. Am I going over I'm sorry that that that line um you know can't be drawn for wildlife. You stay on your habitat and we'll stay on ours. know that it's it's got to be progressive, buffered, gradual, and and bonafideed and dignified and designated places where we can all interact uh with each other and with nature. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other in public testimony? in person public testimony. Seeing that, is there any call-in public testimony or email public testimony? Mr. Chairman, we have no email testimony. Okay. Does staff have any final comments? Just for the purpose of clarification. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Chairman, um I wanted to highlight that Mr. Harpster handed out um several um handouts and those are identical to those items which were provided in the packet and and uh already published on the county's website as part of this project with exception of the Pasco School District uh capital facilities plan update. Um I'm looking at the footer of the document here. He provided pages 14, 15, and 16 of that document. It's dated March 2025. And so we will enter this into the record um as part of the the meeting um items as attachment one is what I would propose. Um, and then the last item I was going to clarify is um the cultural resources plan requirement um is part of the SEIPA uh determination. And so that's not part

of what you would be making your recommendation to the board of county commissioners um about. Instead, that would be that's a staff action. So, I just wanted to be clear about that, but we've heard that request tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I will entertain a motion to close public comment. And moved by moved by Commissioner Gutier and seconded by Commissioner Derer. Oh, no. He moved it. I'll second. Okay. By Dutter. Second. Please speak into the mic so it can be recorded. It's my fault. I'm plugging the mic. So moved. Second. I will second. Okay. The public testimony portion of the public hearing for PUD 2024-01 SEPA 2024-24 is closed. Is there any is there discussion from the planning commission members? planning commission members. I guess the only clarification I' I'd like to have u from staff is the modification um somewhere in writing um of modifying that cultural uh architectural study um into the invertment discovery protocol. How does that take place? Um, so the SEAB determinations are made by the responsible official of the lead agency. So that's planning director in Franklin County. And so he has the opportunity to revise or modify a DNS if uh new environmental information is pres presented. Um, and he can do that before uh

typically it would occur before it goes to the the board. So, if you want to give them a nudge or say that you would support that, that would be there's no prohibition against you doing that. I just wanted to make it clear that the planning commission doesn't make a recommendation to the board as to that issue because it's administrative in function. Understood. Thank you. Um I have a question for staff about how do you uh about the independent protocol for excavation? So, it's called an inadvertent discovery plan. And basically what it is is saying um obviously anytime that you're just uh doing uh earth work, you have an opport there's a chance that you could discover something inadvertently. And so if anything is um done, we put the contractors on notice. Basically, it's a it's a formalized written agreement. Um, and it will go on the construction plans as well, but it basically says this is the protocol if something's discovered and it, you know, you notify tribes, you notify the coron coroner and different folks. That's the the general idea. So that's a condition as the per the billing permit then, right? Or stamped on the Yes, many times that is a condition of different projects. Um but there are other times where um there is a concern um either by county staff or voiced by an agency or an individual that a place may be very likely to have uh these resources present. And so in those cases um many times they'll require a cultural and archaeological re uh resource survey. I will tell you that we almost always get that request from the Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation from the state and they have a predictive model that you can look at online that shows different

areas of the state where they believe that there are higher chances for these um sort of cultural objects and and artifacts to be found. And almost all of this area of Franklin County is just lit up on the map. Like it's all shown as very high probability. And so I don't know how often people actually find stuff around here. I've you know anecdotally I haven't heard anything but that I would just give you that information that they show that this area has a high probability and yet um when we do have uh studies done um I maybe the maybe the results are always confidential so I don't hear about it but I haven't heard of uh discoveries. All righty. Thank you. But on that on that subject, uh Katie, you stated and I think legal um I think attorney Mark stated that within Coler states and the previous underwood estates there was that modification of the cultural archaeological study into the invertment discovery protocol. Is that what I'm understanding? I'm not certain about those projects. Yes. Thank you. Is there any other discussion amongst commissioners? If not, I would entertain a motion. Can we pull the screen back up? Yeah, we get that back on the on the screen there.

Okay. Again, I would entertain a motion. I will second. Do you want me to read it? Yeah. I move that the Franklin County Planning Commission forward a positive recommendation to the Franklin County Board of Commissioners to approve with condition application PUB204-01 with the suggested findings of fact and conditions of approval as detailed in the staff report. I'll second that motion. Okay. So moved by Commissioner Gutieras and seconded by Commissioner Daru. Uh is there any discussion? Oh, sorry. Okay. Hopefully I got that right. Is there any discussion? May we have a roll call vote, please? Remy Daroo, yes. Annie Pierrez, yes. Styon, yes. Mark Dutder, yes. Mike Vincent, yes. Chairman, the motion has passed. Okay. Thank you. Okay. This part of the public hearing is closed as we move to towards to item number two. Item number two is a public hearing for file CUP 2024-15/EPA 2024-25, the Paloo Junction Solar Project CUP. The proposal is to allow the construction and operation of a 10 uh megawatt solar photo voltaic

uh facility solar farm on up to 80 acres. The project would be would be cited on non-errigated land privately owned by Neil Smith LLC and Neil Smith Trust. I declare the public hearing for CUP 2024-15/EPA 2024-25 to be open at 716. May we have staff present the staff report, please? Oh, Okay. Excellent. All right. So, we'll now I'll now have the opportunity to present to you the staff report for the conditional use permit for the Paloo Junction solar project. Um there is no address um given for this location, but the parcel numbers are shown here on the screen and also described in the staff report. Um, so this proposal is for a conditional use permit. Um, which means it's something that is not listed as a use permitted um out outright by right in the zoning district, but something that requires a special permit and a public hearing process to move forward. The zoning at the proposed site is agricultural production 40 or AP40 for a

small section. Um the majority of the zoning out there is general industrial or I2. Likewise the comprehensive plan land use designation is agricultural for that area that is designated with AP40 zoning and the balance which is the majority is industrial and that's designation was given by the city of Connell because this is lying within their urban growth area. The property size um is listed for the different parcels. So, the one we're calling parcel A for the purposes of this presentation, uh, that one is 73.53 acres. Parcel B is 67.07 acres, totaling approximately 140 acres. This project is going to be generally located east of US Highway 395 and also north of State Route 260. This would be located south of Nordheim Road and north of the Connell Airport. Um so when you are driving north on 395, the city of Connell lies mostly um to the west. This is on the opposite side. Um but there are some areas that are in city limits um on that uh east side. The request is to allow the construction and operation of a 10 megawatt 10 megawatt excuse me solar PV facility um commonly known as a solar farm on up to 80 acres of this site. The site plan um that they've submitted they've given two different preliminary examples and an exact site plan will be determined if the use is approved. Um basically they're not going to go to all the um specific engineering work until they know that they've got um the opportunity to do this project. Um but they have given these different um conceptual site plans so that um you

know what you're looking at in terms of a general approval. The features um include proposed solar panels. Um they are proposing fencing and e ingress and egress access points and other means of conveying the power to a nearby substation. I do want to compliment the applicant. It was a very complete application. They had a lot of exhibits. They've done a lot of um homework on this proposal. So um it was uh it was nice to be able to go through that and easily see all these different components that they've considered. Um I'm sharing now on the screen a vicinity map. So this shows um where we're talking about for the project. So as you can see the city of Connell is um kind of funny shaped in terms of its actual boundaries. Um I don't think a lot of people realize especially this portion to the southeast is part of the city, but it is. Um and they have some wells down there and things like that. They're super important for city infrastructure. Um up here is where you would find or thereabouts is where you would find the correctional facility. Um downtown Connell lies about here. Schools up this way. Um this is the proposed site location. So it's uh just north of that um air strip, the airport. And then this map just shows you specifically those different um land use areas that I was talking about. So if um let me go back if I can point here. This red line um outlines the different the two different parcels which make up the proposed site. Oops, excuse me. It comes up this way and goes around like that. Um this right here is uh not part of the project. So it's the industrial area that you see here. And then also it

would um have a little bit of this um agricultural land as part of these parcels where they're considering. So unfortunately the parcel lines don't line up with the different um comprehensive land use uh designations or um zoning and that's by virtue of some of it being inside of the urban growth area and some of it being outside the urban growth area. This is the zoning map here. So similar map, we even use similar colors, but the designations are a little different because this is actually zoning instead of the land use map. This is the preliminary example site plan number one. So as you can see, they and um Whoops. I was just going to show north is um pointing up on this this map. Um you can see this uh mapped flood plane feature here. So, they're working around that. They're staying out of that and they have their um potential facilities um kind of drawn up where they would propose it to be. I mentioned before the airirst strip. It's a little faint on this slide, but you kind of see it right there. And then the next slide just shows um site plan number two. And for this one, they're actually um a little bit further from this uh feature that would need to be confirmed, but potential flood plane as it's mapped and uh they have they would have their facilities um kind of rearranged on the property. So, we um did an analysis it and prepared this in the staff report for you. Um, we've uh determined based on our review of the code that it appears this proposed use is in accordance with the goals and policies of the Franklin County Comprehensive Plan. We also have determined that this

location is within the Franklin Public Utilities District number three boundaries and it's also in proximity to infrastructure owned by that um agency and they've uh they have voiced their support for this project. They want to um see the solar energy production occurring there. There are some critical areas that we've considered and that have been studied by the applicant. Those include steep slopes, flood plane, um a stream that uh probably runs dry most of the year, um but it is a potential stream site. And uh in addition, um when we looked at the priority habitat and species records by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, um they do um indicate that there's Ferguson hawks in the project area. So a a presence of that species. This map just calls out um some key facilities that are in this area. So you can see here this is a line of BPA or Bonavville Power Association. Um and that's a important like trunk line as I would probably call it for um uh for energy and then power power um transmitt and then there's some substations that you can see here. So it's really in close proximity the substation that you would observe if you were traveling north uh like towards Spokane or Ritzville on US Highway 395. Um the other thing I wanted to show here is the difference between those areas that are served by the Franklin Public Utility District and then um Big Bend Electrical Cooperative. And then also I believe Vista serves this area in terms of broadband, but I don't believe that they provide any power to the

area. Um this shows the A resource lands um map as mapped by the county several decades ago. Um there are were some areas were identified as um prime dryland areas. Um and so that is within the project boundary in terms of the oops I made a mistake there. Uh within the parcel boundary so I want to call that out and we'll talk about that in a moment. These are some site photos provided by the applicant. Um they also have their own presentation. So they you may see these pictures again. I'm unsure, but this shows um kind of a rendering, a visual rendering of what they expect the site to look like from different vantage points. And as you can see, it's pretty um pretty flat terrain out there. There's some more photos there. Let me just um go over some of the public notice requirements and let you know how we met those. So on January 30th of this year, staff sent out a combined notice of application and a SEPA notice of consultation to technical agencies. Um also city of Connell itself property owners within one mile of the project proposed project. Uh this was published in the Franklin County graphic and also put out to the SEA register. The property owner was required to post two pending land use action signs on the property, which they did in January 30th. I confirmed it myself. I saw those signs. Um, the county did receive four public comments during this initial noticing period in addition to two letters of support. Um, those came in from the landowner and also from Franklin PUD and those are all included in your um, application materials. So, all of the public notice requirements

have been satisfied. Um in addition on March 20th uh staff issued the mitigated determination of non-significance under the state environmental policy act or SEIPA and sent that notice of a combined uh or a combined notice of MDNS and a notice of public hearing which we are um conducting here tonight to the same folks technical agencies including city of Connell property owners within one mile Franklin County graphic and the sea register. Um, we did not receive any comments on that round. Uh, just to go over the agency comments, uh, we did receive, uh, comments from the Confederated Tribes of the Callville Indian Reservation. They concurred with the draft cultural resources report and requested a final draft be provided by the applicant. Um, the Washington State Department of Transportation weighed in. They reviewed the SEIPA determination. They had no objections. They did offer some suggested conditions which um we'll we'll go over those. The Department of Ecology sent a letter. Their comments focused on storm water and um some additional mapping of potential critical areas on the site plan. Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife um they focused their comments on uh the concern about potentially impacted shrubstep habitat and they had uh requested some updates to the sea checklist. This was done um so I mentioned before we did a sea notice of consultation. So that was with an initial checklist. By the time we got to the MDNS um notice there was a revised checklist at that time to clarify this information. Um so the applicant did correct the information on the frigous hawk which changed in terms of its uh status in the state of Washington and also um information about noxious

weeds. In addition, the f uh Franklin County Public Works provided their comments. Um they've concluded that the proposed site will not have a significant impact on the county road system. They are recommending that conditions of approval would uh address a franchise agreement, inspection of roadways before and after construction. Um applicant would need an approach permit. That's typical. And also, um they talked about utility crossings. I'll now go over the abbreviated version of the recommended findings of fact. Um these are listed in detail in written form in your staff report. First, the proposed use in these zoning districts is in accordance with the goals and policies of the county's development regulations, specifically the zoning code or title 17 of the Franklin County Code and also the Franklin County Comprehensive Plan. Second, the proposal will not adversely affect public infrastructure. Third, the proposal as conditioned will be constructed, maintained and operated to be in harmony with the existing or intended character of the general vicinity. And the key word there is um as conditioned because we are recommending conditions to ensure that this um can be attained. Next, the location and height of the proposed structures and site design will not discourage the development of permitted uses on property in the general vicinity or impair the value thereof. In other words, we don't see that this um solar farm would be detrimental in terms of opportunities or or um enjoyment of property uses offsite in that area. The operation in conjectal will not be more objectionable to nearby properties by reason of noise, fumes, vibration, dust, traffic, etc. than would be uh operated by any other permitted uses in the district.

Basically what we're looking at is this is already industrially zoned and so you could think about all the wide range of possible uses that could go on industrial property. Um and those can those can have a lot of um impacts and a solar farm is going to certainly have a visual impact but not have um a lot of these other potential impacts. Um there could be some noise but it would probably be less than say a factory um or even um I don't know like a construction layown yard something like that. Next, the proposal will not endanger the public health, safety, or general welfare if located where proposed. Now, I have some slides um just to let inform you of the SEPA MDNS mitigation measures. Um first, they need to comply with ecologies applicable permit requirements, including air and water quality standards. Um those they may have permits they need to obtain through the state once they get if they get a conditional approval. um a conditional use permit, excuse me. Then um moving forward, they would need to provide um planning level MA maps um for the department to review, which would include all potential aquatic resources that are noted in the critical area and wetland reports. Um this means looking into those potential intermittent streams on the east and west sides of the project area. Um verify the water type, the spatial location of those features, um and then determine what those buffers are going to be. So, in other words, there's a need for more ecological research and investigation if this project does move forward so that we can make sure that um everything's done according to the critical areas code. Next, operators of the construction sites that disturb more than one acre, they have to get a discharge of or if they have a discharge of storm water, they have to get a permit um from ecology. So, this is standard language. Um next, this came from the Department of Transportation.

The applicant is responsible for keeping and maintaining SR260 and US 395 free of debris. Next, if a shrub step is removed, the applicant shall work with the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife to include all appropriate habitat mitigation measures. Also moving forward, the site would um need to be reseeded with native grasses and maintained free of noxious weeds um which can help to promote vegetation that will help provide habitat for native mammal species. These um facilities can be complimentary to wildlife um and to reduce or avoid potential impact to the frigous hawk breeding season um they would need to do a pre-construction survey to identify any nests that are out on the site um and and follow these protocols. Next, the applicant shall complete additional glare analysis during the project design to ensure that the final design does not produce glare. as as it stands right now, they don't anticipate that being a factor. Um, now this is in an inadvertent discovery protocol language. Should archaeological materials or human remains be observed, all work has to stop. They contact uh the different uh entities that are listed here and they would have to comply with all the RCWs and Washington administrative code sections that are applicable. And finally, nothing in this MDNS shall excuse the applicant from complying with all other state, local, federal regulations relating to solar energy operations. Oh, wait, there is more. Number 10, the project needs to include uh the proper erosion and sediment control practices. Um, there's a lot of detail on that. The applicant needs to comply with the necessary uh federal and state standards for solar operations. Kind of repetitive of nine. and 12, this cup is going to be valid for one year

after the date of board approval if granted. Um, but if after one year the conditions can't be met, they'll need to apply for a new cup. This so they don't have cart blanch just to kind of like decide whenever they want to get going with it. Um, the use needs to comply with the standard set forth in the local fire code. And then also, and this is standard language for a conditional use permit, if they discontinue or abandon the use at the site, uh the cup approval goes away. Um if they if they stopped for a while and they wanted to restart, they'd have to come back for another conditional use permit. The site needs to be maintained at all times so that the land doesn't become a fire hazard or accumulate with debris and weeds. and nothing um shall be construed as um giving approval of agencies that we can't give approval for. Any special permit can be revoked by the board of county commissioners if after a public hearing it's found that the conditions upon which the special permit was authorized have not been fulfilled or if the authorized use changed um in any of these ways that became a detriment. And the permit applies to the described lands and shall be for um the entity that applied um or their assigns and any transferring of the permit needs to come through the planning department um so they can be notified. Oh, and also they can't transfer a conditional use permit to another site. It is a sightsp specific deal. Future expansions and improvements of the site would need to comply with submitted approved site building plans. And um then also there's some uh disclaimer language saying that if the county gives a permit, the county is not taking responsible for um negligence and sort of legal ease.

If any of the solar panels are proposed um on parcel uh B, the applicant needs to provide um the base flood elevation determined by a licensed surveyor and show the updated 100-year flood plane and subsequent site plans associated with the site for review by the county. The reason is because of that uncertainty about the flood plane. It's a little hard to know exactly where it's at at this point. Um but if we get a surveyor out there and they do some elevation um analysis, then we can figure out what that base flood elevation point is and figure out um how to keep them out of those areas. Prior to submitt of a final site plan, the applicant needs to submit a geotech report that meets the requirement of county code. Um the use needs to be restricted to be outside of those agricultural resource lands. Um and that's shown in the staff report. So again, they don't propose to use the entire site, and that's good because we we need to keep them out of those agricultural resource lands. Um, they need a franchise agreement if they're in county right away. Um, there's a condition about public works coordinating with them for any changes to the county road system. You also need to go to Franklin County Roads Department to get an approach permit. And you also need to talk to them about um utilities that cross any county road right ofway. Um that is by uh the stated resolutions. So, all that is to say that staff does recommend that this planning commission um following your review of public testimony um that can be given and anything else that you would consider. Uh we are suggesting a positive recommendation be forwarded to the county um board of commissioners to approve this application um with the six

findings of fact and the 27 conditions of approval that I went over. Thank you. Thank you. Does any commissioner have questions of staff? Did you say there was a letter? Was there a letter against or I didn't see that in the or did I misar that all the letters were in support? Well, there were letters that concerned agencies um talking about wildlife protection and things like that, but no, we didn't receive any letters that I would characterize as being like totally against the project comment letters that were against. Okay. No, I got a couple questions. Um I know you you stated there's a rideway. What does access look like to this 80 acre solar farm being proposed? I'm sorry. Can you repeat the question? I you talked about right away. Can you tell me what the um and I don't maybe I missed it. What does access look like to the solar farm proposed? Try to pull up a map here. as far as access construction, uh, daily usage already. East West. Oh, this one here. Is that um that's an existing I have a couple minutes. Yeah, the applicant does have their own slides so we can probably walk you through those questions.

And I need to correct what I um stated a moment ago. the um department did receive a phone call um from a person named Jerry Sackman who was calling regarding the solar project. Um he did want to uh let the planning commission know that he opposes the uh project because it destroys the ground and this was a comment received by phone call on the 2nd of April um in the afternoon. So I'll put that on the record. you earlier you mentioned um there's a potential of noise. Can you can you describe what kind of noise were you speaking about construction or were you speaking about the aftermath after these solar panels have been installed? I think they buzz but I I don't know exactly. I have I'm not super familiar with these types of facilities, but I think I've learned from previous reading about these types of projects that they there isn't a little bit of a noise factor associated with them. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? My question is uh it being so close to the airport, we talked about glare and stuff like that. I'm sure they've got a proposed plan for all that and how I'm sure they'll face, but just in the implication someone is flying and things like that. My understanding is that they talked to the operator of that airport and they had no concern about glare and impacts there. Um, in addition, when we did our SEPA uh notice of consultation and notice of MDNS, uh we always uh send these types of projects over to a woman named Kim Peacher. She's a civilian employed by the Navy in western Washington and she's uh she she knows

about the military flight patterns and we did not hear any response from her. I have a question. Uh I had a question about the glare which was answered. Uh, are there any maintenance buildings on site? I don't believe there's any structures on the site at present. Okay. And is Franklin County PD going to be a recipient of the the power generated from this project? Yes, that's my understanding that they will be a customer, if you will. Okay, that's all I had. Any other questions? Okay. Uh, does applicant or the applicant's representative wish to speak or give a presentation on X? Yeah. Okay. Yes, probably. That's the laser. Oh, great. Thank you very much. 100 bucks. Evening commissioners and staff. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell you about our project. Closer to the mic, please. You got it. My name is Aaron Lynch. Um I'm here on behalf of One Energy Renewables, the proponent of this solar project. Um, I'm going to try not to repeat too much of what Nicole's already uh told you today, and I'll focus most of my presentation on the questions that you've asked, as well as uh primarily visuals of the land as it is today and how we expect it to look uh once a project is built. So, to introduce myself and our company, we're a Washington-based developer of utility scale solar projects across North America. We have

just over 850 megawatts operating or under construction currently. Um we have about a 100 employees and that includes all the functions across our company from finance and legal and accounting to development, engineering and construction management. Um I think one of the things that we pride ourselves on as a company is choosing these carefully cited low impact projects and we believe that Paloo Junction is one of those sites. The way that we approach sighting or the way that we approach solar projects, uh, we require five things in order for a solar project to function. Um, first is we need a solar resource. So, a strong proven energy resource, which is why we're here in Eastern Washington. There's a lot of sun here. There's a lot of energy for us to capture with solar panels. Second, obviously, we need land to build our arrays on. Um, we need a willing land owner that wants to work with us and rent uh the land to us. Um, so we have secured site control with a private land owner on that industrial and agriculturally zoned land that you saw earlier tonight. Um, we also need to secure grid interconnection. So that's why it's so important that we're um, situated near to the Franklin PUD infrastructure. Um, last, we need someone to buy the power. In this case, it is going to be Franklin PUD. We're going to sell all of the energy produced directly to the PUD directly onto their system. And then the last piece, which is obviously why we're here tonight, is the permit. Um, so in addition to the conditional use permit or the land use permit, we're ready and committed to securing all other federal, state, local permits, including access permits, storm water permits, um, and the like in order to get this project going. So, you already uh saw a little bit about where the project is. Um, I'll zoom in a little bit and talk about, you know, why we chose this site specifically. Um, when we first went to

Connell, we were looking inside their city boundaries um, at the site closer to the substation. You know, building our lines back to the substation is relatively expensive. So, ideally, we want to be as close as possible. But we talked to the city and we talked to the folks in the city um and they let us know that they would like to preserve that uh frontage road for a higher use, commercial, industrial um something else. So we relocated outside of the city onto these two parcels here um highlighted in blue and numbered on the right. Um in this situation, we're trying to avoid any impacts to our mapped flood planes. Um we don't have any impacts to water rights on the area in the area. that says those um parcels don't have water rights and are unerrigated. Um we also I wanted to highlight uh there's no critical habitat on site. The fugenous hawk nearby is um not actually located on the site and uh WDFW has concurred that there is no nesting area on the site. We are in their uh core territory, so their hunting grounds. So they're um concerned about impacts to their uh hunting areas and not their nesting areas. So, it's a little bit of a distinction I wanted to draw. Okay. So, we've seen this map before. Um, one of the reasons that I bring it up again, um, is just to highlight again how complicated, um, the zoning designations are, um, and to draw attention to that all tax land here, um, the agricultural lands of long-term commercial significance. Um, in these two parcels, it's about 20 acres, uh, total of all tax land. Um and uh I would like to open the discussion uh to see if you would consider allowing us to build on that all tax land um if we are to continue as well an agricultural use. And I'll talk more about that in a [Music] second. So this is sort of a summary of everything we've seen so far. We're

approximately a mile east of the city of Connell, just south of Nordheim Road on two parcels owned privately by Neil Smith Trust and Neils LLC jointly. Those parcels are about 140 acres and we're proposing to use up to 80 of those acres for this facility. Um we are leasing that land from the land owner. So he will maintain ownership of the land through the operation of the project and after the project is decommissioned. We will uh connect to the utility which is Franklin Public Utility District at their Blandon substation um and provide 10 megawatts of AC power to their system. We'll be using single axis tracking groundmounted solar. It's technical sounding, but I've got a bunch of pictures to show you what I mean by that in a moment. And we're hoping it'll come online by the end of next year. Um, you heard a lot about the zoning and permitting already. Um, so I want to talk a little bit about the land use. Currently, it's in the conservation reserve program. It hasn't been farmed or grazed for years. Right now, uh, we've got vegetative, uh, cover maintenance and weed control are the only activities going on on that site. Um and we would propose a dual use uh agricultural use for the solar farm which would be uh grazing underneath and around the panels. This would serve as vegetation management and also as agricultural production. Um and this is something that one energy has done before. Um we have experience with it in other parts of the country and we are working with a local grazer KB solar grazing to design our site in order to allow for the grazing here in eastern Washington. So my argument to you then would be that sheep grazing under and around the panels would actually increase the agricultural production relative to what it is today. Um including on the alt tax land and the industrial land and that at the end of the product's useful life we would decommission the project and return it to its former agricultural conditions and potential. So, I argue that we wouldn't be removing all tax land from

agricultural production and ask that you consider allowing us to build on that land, which is one of the flattest portions, which is why uh we like it so much from our standpoint. So, here's really what it looks like today. Um you'll definitely see some of those pictures uh that were shared earlier. Um the photo on the left is right near the intersection of um Nordheim Road and Airport Road. That's the private road that we were talking about before. That is also our proposed access route. So Nordheim Road goes here along the north side of the parcel. And then uh our access would turn off onto this existing access road. Um and then we would have an access to the parcel both left and right or east and west if you will um from that uh private road. The second photo is shown right at the bend, the first bend in Nordheim Road, which is sort of the line dividing the two um zoning designations. So, if you look sort of along this way to the edge of that hill, everything to the left of it is agricultural. Everything to the right of it is industrial. But, as you can see, it's all sort of looking the same right now. Little grassy, scrubby, a little dusty. Um, and here's Sorry, Neil. So, here's here's um a map of the habitat that was prepared by um professional uh what a west they're a habitat uh ecological consultant that we hired to map. So, they mapped almost the entire area as pasture and mixed in environs. Um so again just uh grass forbes um some uh invasive species but an you know pretty homogeneous looking. The small amount of shrub step that was identified is here um right on this burm. Um there's also we actually didn't

have the map all the way up this hill. Um but based on um the aerial imagery you can sort of see that there is shrubstep up there on the hill. we wouldn't be disturbing anything on that side of the ditch which runs along here as well. We also did have a wetlands consultant prepare a report um to identify where the drainages are, the streams, any wetland features. Uh we didn't identify any wetland features. Um the ditch is the primary uh waterway through the site. There is also a mapped um NWI stream that goes this way, but um based on his field reconnaissance and also the satellite imagery, you can really see that it drains sort of this way onto the uh western side of that burm. Erin, can you say what NWI is? National Wetlands Inventory. Yes. Thank you, Wes. So, that's sort of a summary of what the site looks like today. And um you've seen some of these uh potential layout examples already. Um in any case, uh we would want to, you know, finish that geotechnical study and finish the the wetlands mapping and make sure everything's um in line before we come up with our final uh layout, which we would do, you know, within the next year. Um but any any layout that we decide on would occupy fewer than 80 acres. We would have that proposed access route um off of Nord uh airport road which is off here off of Nordheim. Um we would like to avoid impacts to the flood flood plane. We don't want to make floods worse of course. Um and we would keep our fence lines set back from the road um from the triangle of of visibility and also the parcel boundaries in accordance with the requirements. Um so again I'm showing three potential outlines here. Um all of them want to

avoid this flood plane. We also want to avoid touching that um bit of shrub step if we can keep WDFW happy um and sort of keep our our uh facility as tight as possible to to keep the impacts to the ground disturbance as low as possible. So here's what you've seen already. I'll move through it relatively quickly, but this is a picture um taken at the corner of the western entrance to Airport Road, which actually loops around the airport, which is why I'll call both of those airport road. Um looking towards the south on the site. Um this is what it looks like today, or actually in September, I think. Oops. And this is what it would look like uh once the project is built if we go with that first layout option. Um all of these digital renderings are spatially accurate. We hired a geospatial engineer to create them. So this is true to size is what we would expect to see. Things that you can make out in the image are this wildlife friendly fence which is a a woven wire mesh. We have a some transformers here on this is the only part that sits on a concrete pad and then the array of solar panels would go um north to south. So I'll do again a zoom in on what those panels look like. Um but keep that in mind. So this is from the other side of airport road, you know, looking about uh the the opposite direction southwest and then from the highway. So this is on 395 actually southbound because um if you're heading north, you have to really crank your neck to turn around and see the see the site. But you can take a look here. Um there's a little portion over here that's where you can see um the site and slightly different angle, but you can see the green represents that pivot here and this sort of grayish field in the back. That's where the the solar site would

be. Great. Um okay, so this is sort of looking up close to one of those uh arrays. Um we have the top is a bfacial PV panel. So we use uh panels that absorb light from the top down and also the reflected light from the ground up. They're approximately 90 in x 45 in which is just a little bit larger than an average door size. Um at maximum tilt, which they're pictured at here, which is about 52 degrees, um that's when they're the tallest. And they're usually no tall that top edge here is usually no taller than about 10 feet. Um but you know depending on the undulation of the ground, how much uh dirt work we got to do. Um sometimes they can be a little taller. 12 14 ft. Um this site's pretty flat, so we're thinking probably 10 feet is about right. Um when they're horizontal, so when they're laying flat and they do move throughout the day, so they faced east in the morning and then they rotate. So they're facing straight up in at noon and then west in the evening. Um so when they're flat, they're horizontal. They're about six feet tall. Um and they sit on this middle tube that we call a torque tube or a tracker tube. And that's what sort of drives the motion. And that's one of the parts of the components that you might hear a little bit of buzz um when they're operation operational. So again, only during daylight hours when they're moving. And all of that is supported on steel piles. So these um are again are about six feet of the steel piles above the ground. Um and then depending on soil condition, soil strength, how wet it is, how consolidated it is, um they're usually about 8 to 12 feet below ground as well. And we drive them in. Um there's no foundation. It's just steel into dirt. Um no concrete under there. So that when we're ready to take the array out, we can just, you know, yank it out. So, this is sort of what construction

looks like. It also gives you a good side good scale for for size. Um, you can see we've got a couple guys here working on on the panels. They fix all the panels by hand. Um, so these are about, you know, 5t off the ground. Um, this is our Toten Solar project in Colorado. Um, was constructed three years ago. Um, you can also see how widely spaced they are. um between the panels we've got about, you know, depending again on site constraints, um somewhere between 10 and 20 feet between rows. And here's another look at that. Um here are two more sites that we constructed in 2022 um in Colorado where you can see um the spacing between the rows. Um again, these are about the size of a door. So um you can use that for reference. This is another we have a couple sites in Colorado. This is another site that we just finished building um at the end of last year. This was taken, you know, a week after they finished it. So, we're in the process of reveating. Um this is a very sandy site. Um but this is about the size of what we're proposing. So, this is 11 megawatts. It's a little bit bigger than what we're proposing. So, you know, you can see here like sort of that old uh pivot and there's another one over here. So, it's, you know, maybe a third or half the size of a pivot. And I think that's hopefully enough visual for you. This is a another one of our sites in Minnesota where we have um some sheep grazing going on on site. Um they're very happy. So, um happy to answer any questions. I can go right into the ones that you already asked. Um and also, um happy to take new ones. The uh one question I have and I I I can't recall exactly your wording on it,

but you stated um this is temporary. I don't know if I would say it's temporary. The lifetime, it's long-term but reversible. So, the lifetime of the project is usually around 30 years, maybe 35, maybe 40. Um but when the project is done, we can, you know, decommission, take out all the pieces. We have in our lease an agreement to um return the land to its previous state. So, uh temporary on a long time scale maybe, but I I wouldn't I would try not to use that word myself. Okay. What about um as far as maintenance goes? How often um do you have to maintenance these solar panels? Um you know, that's a good question. I am not an engineer so I can't uh answer it well but I would from what I I know from talking to our engineers we expect um site visits to be several times a month two to four times a month and that would be both for standard maintenance and for um troubleshooting anything that was broken. So once it's once it's operational there's no one on site full-time um and someone would visit occasionally to maintain um the actual components. we would have, you know, different folks on on site to uh, you know, move the sheep around or do any spot mowing or weeding or anything like that. As far as um sheep grazing, um I I've been around goats most of my life growing up and they like to chew on stuff. Um, what do sheep do as far as um exposed wiring? Yeah. Um, I'm not the expert on that, but I did bring the expert on that. Um, Cameron Krebs is here and he can answer any questions you have about grazing, I guess. So, bring him up now. Or no, let's bring him up. This is Cameron Krebs here. I'll bring up your slide, too. Thank you.

Cameron Krebs with KB Solar Grazing, address 68171 Kuny Lane, Boardman, Oregon. So, just across the river here in the neighboring agricultural state of Oregon. Excellent question. And one of the reasons sheep are used in solar farm grazing versus goats is they don't jump and lay on the panels when they reach solar noon where a goat likes to climb up and jump on panels. The sheep do not do that. The second thing goats are like what I like to call exploratory nibblers which is they eat trash. Uh sheep typically do not exploratory nibbles. So the we monitor and watch that obviously the cabling is installed. It's high quality exposed to the elements cabling. It's in wired looms that run um across the site. So, it's cable management becomes a really significant issue for the site. Uh and when you see cable the sheep engage into cable exposure would be a situation when they're out of feed. And so by proper animal husbandry practices and maintaining that vegetated cover on the site, not only does it reduce the fire risk, which is a concern in your guys' conditional use permit. The second thing it does is aids in water infiltration. So that goes right into your Swift permit. So discharging and we want to capture every drop of water that hits the solar site and get it to infiltrate through the soil versus discharging off the site. And so vegetative cover of the ground is highly desirable by the solar companies. And the sheep are there to control uh that biomass that's generated and talking to the agricultural use of the area. We're going to convert that carbon, the grass into food and fiber. So if we go straight back to your farm gate receipts or maintaining Altex land into agricultural production, CRP is not

generating uh farmgate revenue and having sheep on that ground would certainly generate revenue for um the conile community. Uh most likely the site will be serviced by somebody local uh to take care and manage their um the needs of the stock and the needs of the site. So that is a long question to answer a few of the issues that were brought up today. So thank you for the time. How do you irrigate the the ground for the for the for the ground cover? So uh this is dryland um sheep or desert animals. This parcel does not have irrigation water rights. So there will be no irrigating on this parcel. We're simply going to take good old mother nature's rain. uh what it comes and what it generates, whatever it grows, we're going to convert that back into food and fiber and then send it off to the American consumer to uh to use and we're going to maintain that vegetative cover. This is a picture of yours truly. Uh those are my sheep on a solar farm in Gillum County. So that's just across the river from Roosevelt or Clickac County. uh that was taken the 1 of May last year and you can see those sheep sleeping in the background we have that ground cover down to about 4 in and our goal is to remove 60% of the annual carbon production uh annually so that when that goes into the fire season as you guys know around here wildfires June through October it's got a really uh reduced biomass and so if the fire moves onto the site um the equipment's protected And there is evidence from Click Attack County that we did last year in the Bickleton fire if you guys remember when it blew up in July 20th. Uh there's a large utility scale solar site over there. The fire moved into the solar site and had zero damage to the

equipment. So zero damage. There was no uh those wires, nothing succumb to the damage and they were able to re-energize the site as soon as it was approved by BPA. So, you're talking about a seasonal grazing in the spring or something, right? Yeah, we are. This is desert ground. We're going to graze it when it's green. If we get a fall green up, you know, rains in September or Labor Day, then we might have to do a fall treatment. Um, there could be an opportunity for some year round grazing. You know, part of your conditional use talks about weeds. Uh, three weeds in particular, cheat grass, two types of thistles, both of which are palatable to sheep. So potentially utilizing the sheep to reduce your thistle production and then using a herbicide treatment to manage the thistles so they don't rejuvenate seeds and keep that site into a high um grassland ecosystem which goes right back to WF&W's conditions about maintaining that uh hawk habitat for hunting. So it it is a um blended solution uh by utilizing the sheep and common agricultural practices uh to put that site into a very healthy vegetative state um that is benefit not only to water to the hawks to the wildlife to your local uh fire rule protection districts uh to manage the equipment. So you fence the fence the whole area in. Each each sheep manager operator will will divide a strategy that works best for their um operation depending on headcount and final layout. I mean generally speaking I as a large sheep operator were running over 8,000 head on sites today. Um we might haul in one truckload for 4 days and just take the whole site out in a minute. But uh realistically this site and where it's located is ideal for a resident in

Connell, an FFA student, a local farm, maybe somebody who's trying to come back into agriculture and they can pick up one of these grazing contracts because these are a we're a service provider um and bring a little revenue into their family and this would be an ideal opportunity for them to um advance that rural uh you know there are people that want to live in rural America. America and live up in the Connell Basin. And this would be an opportunity for them to bring a little more revenue into their household. Thanks. I got a question about you said the useful life of the of the project. What does that look like? Why would you why and when would you take this thing down? Um, we would take it down at the end of our power sales contract and the end of our lease. Um, unless both the land owner and the public utility district would like to continue, in which case we would, um, you know, probably re-equip with new equipment, more efficient panels, I assume will exist in that 30 35 year time frame. Okay, great. Thanks. Any questions? Any other questions? Sure. I got one more and it's might be a dumb question, but um solar panels are weather dependent, correct? So, you're selling the power from the energy that you're pulling from this solar to the power company. And I can't remember recall the name of the power company that you're using, but what happens with um extremely rainy days? How long do these solar panels sustain that energy that you're selling to uh the power companies sustain that for the um um residents of Connell? Yeah, I'm probably not the best person to answer that, but um you're right that they only produce

energy when it's sunny out. Um and so people who are much smarter than me um do power scheduling. So they look at all the power forecasts and predict when they're going to be producing power. um and they sort of make a plan for their own utility or for their own balancing authority for what power to expect. So they can um purchase power from other sources often from BPA in this case um on days when they expect it to be rainy. Um, so it's sort of it's a good um it's a good fit for this area especially because you know it's obviously it's sunny a lot here and the sunniest part of the year and the sunniest part of the day is right when um everyone's using their irrigation pumps and you know everyone's using their air conditioners um and so that management of the power is up to the utility and the operator. Got it. And they know how to do it. I don't know how. Yeah. So you're just devel developer coming in and solving these things and selling it and getting out of the way. I'm consulting experts. Okay. All right. Thank you. So not not I guess I could answer your question Manny because I'm on Big Ben Electric's board, but basically the importance of the dams in our area is how solar and wind works because the dam is the buffer. When when the when it's dark outside, you run more water through the dam, get more power. when it's not windy. That that's that's that's the buffer and that's why dams are still very relevant even with solar wind being developed. So okay, any more questions? Mr. Chairman, I I would just like to address one question you guys had around noise and having spent hours on a solar farm. When the tracking motor turns, it's the same decimal as a pivot motor on a gearbox. So, if you've ever seen a pivot move around Pasco or heard it,

it's a smite hum and that lasts about the same duration as a pivot moves. So, if you have never heard one, it's incredibly small levels of decimal. The second noise issue is in the PCS's, which converts the power from DC, direct current to alternating current. Um, and that depends on the style that they purchase and some of the cooling systems that are inside them. But again, it would be equivalent to several of your mini splits on a house uh or your um heat pump unit in the back of your house coming on to cool down those uh units. It it's it's a it is a hum, but it's not like we're talking jet engines blasting on 80 acres outside of Connell. And then the last thing that will scare you if you are around these when we do get high wind events, they do trip to a safety mechanism. Uh and so let's say they're sitting at like 10 degrees and they automatically trip to 50. Uh it sounds like a gunshot going off and you will definitely jump as I did the first time, but um the noise is very minimal in this. With that, I would like to thank everyone for your service to the public and then also for the ability to uh answer testimony today. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Is there any in-person public testimony? I I'll make this real quick. It's It's getting late. I bet everybody's hungry. Um Katrina Fulton. I'm here representing Franklin PUD. um office address 1411 West Clark here in Pasco. But just as everyone has uh reiterated, yeah, Franklin PUD is in support of uh this project. I um oversee finance, customer service, and power supply for the for the PUB. So, as the provider of electricity um up there in Connell, um it's a it's a good resource. As Erin mentioned, it it's generating when loads

are high um due to irrigation in the summertime. So, it's a really good um match to our load profile. Um, as you well stated, yes, the dams are the most important thing we have. It's a base load resource and it does make resources like this possible. So, anyways, I just wanted to um thank you for the time. Thank you for your service to the public and um and the support of the project. Thank you. Thank you for your electricity. Any more in public testimony? Uh, seeing none, is there any call-in public testimony? Any email public testimony? M M Mr. Chairman, we have no other testimony to present at this time. The staff any have any final comments? No final comments. Thank you. I will entertain a motion to close public comment. Move to close public comment. Second. Okay. Moved by Commissioner uh Duy and seconded by Commissioner Knifton. All in favor? I. Okay. The public testimony portion of the public hearing for CU 2024-15 SEPA 2024- 25 is closed. Is there any discussion from the planning commission members? Any any discussion? Seeing none, I would entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, if I might inter interject a little bit. Um, if it's the planning

commission's desire to um allow this project to be on the egg lands of long-term commercial significance, it would be appropriate to add a condition or a statement allowing that to happen and um saying that agricultural production would be uh sustained on that land in this use. if that's your desire. Otherwise, we would not be allowing that to happen on that uh land. That's correct, Nicole. Right. I believe so. Um I was thinking about the the a proposed agricultural use. I mean, I don't think that's needs to be a part of the conditional use permit because I think that's allowed outright. Um What we could say is just to modify the suggested motion. Um animal grazing. So, do do we need to have that? Can we just not have additional provisions to the all tax land regardless of grazing? I think that that would be key and that I and that's what I think that they are um trying to promote is that hey we want to do this extra component and that is our way to be able to use those lands

because those lands are set aside for egg use but this purpose becomes the best use for that land. It generates a an incredible amount of revenue to a properties that is not not possible through any other purpose. And so by limiting it to it has to be grazed, I'm not sure that you might get past this part, but I'm I'm not sure why we're not going ahead and allowing these projects in agricultural land if this becomes its best use. It generates more revenue for the county, the farmer, the community in this use. So commissioner, if I can answer that question for you, please. Um, that would require a zoning change to to change the use and that would also require a declaration that this is a higher and better use of changing that zoning and that was not what was uh applied for. Um, so it it would change the the permit application in front of you today if that were the case. Um, a lands of long-term commercial significant are to be preserved as a land unless you can make that determination. But then you'd have to change the underlying zoning and the underlining uh designation of natural resource lands and on lands that are being leased for 30 35 years. Uh it would be staff's recommendation to uh not move that direction but make this declaration saying that it's going to stay in agricultural production. Uh it would be a higher use but it's going to stay in a production uh consistent with

the new development. So so you can change the language here if you'd like but for example, how did they handle this? because they got a 400 acre solar farm that got put on CRP ground on farmland. They allow wind turbines, which obviously you could still farm underneath them, but it does change that land. And it seems like we're almost being too restrictive by not fixing the language to allow um agricultural land for another purpose. when the when you're talking about u you know 80 acres worth of panels on surrounding ground that's still agricultural but it's still contingent on the lease between the owner so to an to answer your question directly in Adams County I can't speak to the specific project you're referring to but generally if you have land in CRP it is considered still being uh productive under land egg lands of long-term commercial significance. A lot of those projects allow farming activities in here. Uh this is suggested language. It's up to you to declare uh a statement. I just think it's appropriate to declare a statement and it can be very general in nature that uh you would encourage the continued use of these a lands for a production uh consistent with this development. I mean you can make it way too those those projects that I'm talking in Adams County it want the government's not going to allow it to continue to be CRP ground period. It will be some sort of range if that's but those have an

incredible amount of gravel because this is very light soils. If there's much traffic on this site, it's going to have more gravel pathways in order to keep dust down. So, it I think that we need to make sure that we're not limiting future development on other properties within the county that it might become its best use. agricultural lands because it has CRP on it and brings $35 an acre is not its best use. If energy can be developed there with solar panels, it's not its best use and it's not its best use for the county for a tax base either. Commissioner, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just suggesting you add a statement that allows the consistent uses of both things to occur. But you're suggesting that it has to be both. Not it can't be just a single use of a solar farm without some agricultural component on the egglands of commercial significance unless it was going to stay in the CRP program associated with that. That would be my recommendation. Yes, sir. I don't think that's the best thing for the county. That's what my my opinion. We have to vote on this now. Well, Commissioner, um you can continue this hearing. uh you have closed the public comment. You could make a motion to continue this hearing. However, if

you do that, uh you would have to declare any exparte communication. Uh you're really not supposed to go to the site and do your own exploring. Uh but it is in your purview to continue this hearing to a date certain. I may offer one additional suggestion. I just wanted to remind this group that we're going to be um updating the comprehensive plan here shortly and there may be an opportunity to study these types of issues um in that process. As for this permit as it sits right now, um Wes and I both have concerns based on what we understand, how the growth management act works and the preservation of lands uh with the agricultural lands of long-term commercial significance and how they are intended to be kept for very specific a production uses. Um and and so that's what we're trying to be mindful of is that we don't want to uh uh run counter to that, but we can certainly have more discussions separately about these bigger questions because I know you were talking about other sites. And I would point to the fact that this is a permit decision right now. It's not um setting any precedent for future uses. That would be an opportunity for discussion with the comp plan update. Then why would we not wait for the comp plan to be updated? and revised. Um that process is due in July of 2026. Um my thought is that is our target date to try and get it done. There is a bill in front of the legislature to allow us to December. Um sometimes it's further than that before we can get it complete done. Uh, but that would put this project off for um you're you're looking at a year and a

half. Mr. Chairman, I I would like to make a motion to to I want this project to go through and if the permit if they're okay with the use of animals to get that done. But I I do think that if it's not setting a precedence that we we need as a county to consider these other options. But for this permit, I I will make the motion. And I move that the Franklin County Planning Commission forward a positive recommendation the Franklin County Board of Commissioners approve with the condition of application CUP 2024-15 with the suggestion to adopt the six findings of act 27 conditions of approval as attained by uh detailed by the staff report with additional provision to allow the use of all I guess all tax I guess if animal grazing is involved. Second. They've moved by Commissioner Ruie and seconded by uh Commissioner Derder. Is there any discussion? What? Quick question. Uh from a process standpoint. Condition 23 addresses the all text egg use land. If you're adding the actual language, wouldn't you remove condition 23 and make it under 26 conditions? Yes, you would. Needs to be updated because it says it's not allowed as the motion was read. Can we amend that? Sorry, chairman.

So, we can amend that motion then, right? I would I would agree to that. You would need to make a formal um motion to amend. I move to uh amend the emotion to the uh appropriate number of conditions. I guess we're saying 26 conditions instead of 27. Usually I just would still include it in the board, but I would show it as stricken. Okay. For the recommendation. Um so I'll put strike. was 24. 23. Thank you. You'd still have to add the language you had before. Um, so maybe it would should be modification of condition number 23, not striking it. Um, to say use. Um, it sounds like there's a seasonal component. Um, I I wouldn't include that. Say that. No, just if animal grazing is is allowed. Um I just don't want it to be construed that it's supposed to be on an ongoing basis. Just put if animal grazing is used. Okay. Or best management practices or some term. Yeah. I

Yeah. I I don't think you need to worry about that too much because nobody's going to leave their animals out there uh no matter what the designation is after the feed is gone. Um they like them to live, right? Okay. So, we have an amended motion. Uh assuming that that's done, may we have a roll call, please? Remy Doo. Yes. Annie, yes. Stacy, yes. Mark Dutder, yes. Mike Benson, yes. Oh, Mr. Chairman, we have the motion has passed. That's the amendment. Now, you need to vote on the actual motion, Mr. Chairman. Okay. It's the same thing. I know it's redundant, but it's uh keep us keep us on good parliamentary order so we don't uh have a challenge over a technical thing. Okay. Thank you. So, let's have a roll call on the amended motion. Remy Dut, yes. Manny Gibbs, yes. Stacy Knight, yes. Mark Dutder, yes. Mike Vincent, yes. Mr. Chairman, the motion is passed. All right. Thank you. Uh I think that's so the public hearing is closed. And Mr. Chairman, if I might Erin, for for the record, can you make sure we get those slide pres that slide presentation? I'm just going to save it right now. Okay. Thank you. I just want to make sure I have it in the file for the commissioners.

All right, that public hearing is closed and seeing no other business. Is that right, Nicole? None. Public comment. Is there a member of the audience who wants to comment on items not listed on the agenda? Seeing none, administrative items, update on the 2026 comprehensive plan update process and OPMA training. So, commissioners, um, just wanted to give you a brief update. I don't want to keep us any later than, uh, absolutely necessary, but I do want to bring a couple items to your attention. Um on uh the meeting date of March 26th, I did bring to the commissioners, the county commissioners uh a resolution starting the update cycle for our comprehensive plan and development regulations officially. Uh they also approved uh the public participation policy uh which is a requirement that we need to get to get started. Uh and we also further suspended the uh docketing process for um comprehensive plan updates. We have uh four comprehensive plan updates uh applications that did come to us to the planning department uh prior to this. They have all um agreed to roll those into the update cycle. Um we have one that's a master plan resort. We have a couple that uh are wanting to get into the urban growth area related to the Reman uh development out by Daragold and the other one has to do with uh DM uh Douglas Fruit uh some some changes

related to that but that'll all be updated in the process. Uh Nicole is uh a HBL is our consultant for for doing this update. We be will be holding workshops and public information meetings and we will have a a website up shortly to allow for uh very robust uh public participation. The other thing I did bring to the county commissioners is a memo uh that they uh concurred with which is suspending. I I know you guys have all worked very hard to update uh the title 17. Uh trust me, uh Jim and I have uh struggled with some of the development code that is currently in place. Uh we'd love to see it updated. However, the timing of passing something now in the middle of an update cycle presents a lot of problems. Uh, if you want more detail on what those problems might be, please talk to me individually off the record or if you want to talk as a group, I will ask for legal counsel to come and we will go into executive session to have those discussions. But, uh, we suspended that. So, all the work that was done will not be lost. uh our intention is to roll that entire process into the update cycle so that we don't lose any of the comments, we don't lose any of the work that was done. However, uh once we get the comprehensive plan uh policies uh more refined on where we want to go, it will change some of the development regulations both in title 1516. Uh the other is I had a brief discussion with uh legal counsel at at the meeting and he is working on an updated uh nuisance ordinances which is

currently in our title 17. Um both he and I agree that should not be in title 17. I had a a detailed meeting with him afterwards and uh the proposal is that when he gets those done we'll roll those into a different title. And I know that's kind of a technical thing, but it really doesn't belong in our development regulations. That's more of a um police action by the county commissioners. So, that wouldn't necessarily belong there. So, I wanted to just give you a brief update. We did do a presentation that's online for the county commissioners kind of giving just a brief overview. Uh would love to, you know, like I said, we're going to have work sessions and stuff. though, uh, with the planning commission as we go along here. We'll probably have several over the next, uh, several months, but we knew this meeting would run long. I didn't think it was appropriate to give you much more tonight than just kind of a high high level overview. Did you have anything you wanted to add to that, Nicole? No, we're just looking forward to Okay. project. Um the one other thing is that every four years uh as an advisory commissioner to the board of county commissioners, you are required to take uh and meet the requirements that open public meeting act training. So um I I believe we sent out an email to every well we will send out an email to every one of you. Uh I made up a cheat sheet. You can go online. It takes about 30 minutes. You can do it at the AG's website. You print out the certificate. you sign it and you give it to us and then we have it to put in our file so we're good for another four years. So, uh I'll make sure that we get that email out here uh real soon so you guys can all have your training done. And that concludes my uh comments, Mr. Chairman. Okay. Yeah, I think that email was sent out before I believe, but you

can send it out again. It'd be great. All righty. Well, the the planning commission meeting is adjourned at 837