City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the 02/03/2026 meeting of the Kitsap County Planning Commission. Thank you for your participation. Before we begin this evening's proceedings, I'd like to remind everyone that this is an official meeting of the Kitsap County Planning Commission conducted in accordance with Washington State Open Public Meetings Act and Robert's Rules of Order. We ask that all attendees remain respectful throughout the proceedings. Please refrain from cheering, clapping, calling out, displaying signs, or any behavior that may make it difficult for others to hear or follow the discussion.

Such behaviors can be also intimidating to those who may wish to express differing opinions. These proceedings are intended to provide a fair and orderly opportunity for all voices to be heard on the record. If disruptions occur, any Planning Commissioner may call for order and the chair may ask for a break. Disruptive individuals may be asked to leave the meeting room. Thank you for helping us maintain a courteous, respectful, and professional environment.

Alright. The first item on the agenda actually, please forgive me, everyone. I need to go over the virtual rules prior to introductions. Is that correct? Like, virtual meeting protocol before introductions? Please forgive me, you guys. My second meeting is the chair, so thank you for having grace for me. Is that right? Virtual meeting protocol prior to introductions?

Yeah. Introductions and then virtual meeting protocol. Okay.

Wonderful.

Yep. Thank you.

Alright. The first item on the agenda is introductions. Alright. And commissioner Meisenberg, I'd to start with you.

Kathy Meisenberg, North Kitsap.

Kane Fender, Central Kitsap.

Ashley Hall, South Kitsap.

Caleb Nelson, South Kitsap.

Danielle Douthat, South Kitsap. And online we have?

David Vleet, North Kitsap.

Thank you, David. Nice to see you.

Alright.

We're moving on to our hybrid protocol and meeting participation. Please silence all electronic devices during the meeting. If you're attending in person, please refrain from having conversations with other attendees or staff during the meeting. If you wish to provide comments, please wait until the general public comment period. We offer four methods of public comment. In person attendees, please raise your hand if you wish to speak and you'll be called upon. Please approach the podium and speak clearly into the microphone. Virtual attendees, please use the raise your hand button on the bottom of the Zoom window at the appropriate time. Your name will be called. Your microphone will be unmuted.

Call in attendees, press 9 on your phone keypad to signal that you wish to comment. The last four digits of your phone number will be announced and you'll be connected. You may need to press 6 to unmute your line. Written comments or testimony. Written comments may be submitted to the staff or emailed to cjewelkitsap dot gov by 2PM the day prior to the meeting.

Please include the meeting date, your name, and the agenda item or subject you're addressing. Submitted comments will be entered into the record at the appropriate time. For all speakers, please state your name and the general area in which you live. Comments are normally limited to two minutes for general public comment period and three minutes for public hearing comments. These time limits may be adjusted by the chair when appropriate. And I'd like to move to the adoption of the agenda for the evening. Do I hear a motion to adopt adopt the agenda?

I move to adopt the agenda for the February 3 Planning Commission meeting.

Do I hear a second?

I'll second.

Alright. Are there any corrections or additions to the agenda? Alright. Hearing none, all those in favor of approving the minutes, the agenda as presented, please raise your hand. Alright. None opposed. All in favor and the motion passes. And then just so everyone's aware, we are gonna be moving adoption of the January 20 meeting minutes to the next meeting. And alright. So we are gonna be moving into our general public comment period.

As today's topics are briefing and a work study instead of a public hearing, please please note that any comments that you make today will not be added to the official record. The public process will begin for these projects once the draft code is published. Do we have anyone wishing to speak? Sir? Please.

Oh, sir. If you there's a little button there. It'll light up red. There you go. Yes, sir. Hey.

My name my name is Michael Gustafson. I live in Southworth, South Kitsap. I come to object to the ordinance. It's brought been brought before the county several times in the past. It's always been denied.

And the principal reasons are there's a conflict in state law between RCW seven twenty eight, which uses existing fence lines to define property lines, and the other one is RCW thirty six seventy a, Growth Management Act, which which declares the parts that nonconforming parcels should not be made more nonconforming. I was faced with this exact issue in Jefferson County, which has an ordinance similar to the one you're being you you'd be asked to consider. I inherited a house and needed an inceptor tank. In doing that, we discovered that the the legal description property line ran through the middle of the house. That was a problem.

It was a existing fence, had been there for probably forty years. So I approached DCD saying that the adverse possession law prevails, and they disagreed. I forced me to hire an attorney, go to the superior court, which then overruled DCD. That cost me money and time. There was no intent to create a new parcel, and this law that you're this regulation you're looking at does not create new parcels.

It's simply the way we've done in the past, if the adjacent property owners come to a mutual agreement or an existing fence line is there, that satisfies the requirement. This creates a problem where none exists and creates conflict. We don't need to do this at all. And it's been before you five times in the past over the last thirty years. And once again, no matter where it keeps coming up from except that Kitsap apparently is the only county in the state which hasn't figured out that property rights have some merit.

Sorry. I greatly apologize. We're at our two minutes. Thank you for your comment. Yeah. Appreciate it. Is there anyone else in the room that would like to provide comment at this period? Alright. Clara, do we have anybody online?

We do. We've got William

Palmer. Alrighty. Mister Palmer?

Can you hear me?

Yes, sir.

Okay. I wanna make a couple of comments on boundary line adjustment. I submitted a letter, which I think the Planning Commission should have in your hands by now representing the alliance of property owners. We really strenuously opposed the BLA ordinance. I went into some detail in the comments, so I'm not gonna try to repeat myself there, but I am open to questions.

I wanna also make some comments regarding the proposed equestrian rules and regulations that are underway. And number one question is, what is the problem that is supposed to be solved by more regulations for clustering facilities? Number two, who is actually drafting the code? Is it staff, or is it the work study committee? Number three, how are the individual rights of people under the con state's constitution, article one, section one, being preserved by any further regulation of equestrian facilities.

None of that's clear in the proceedings last year or what is going on now. And I'm not sure what the expected, product is of the work study committee. I don't like the process that's gone on so far, and I'm thinking that this is probably a little bit better, but it's still leading to conclusions. The staff is making the calls and nothing.

Mister Palmer, I greatly apologize. You're at your two minute mark. Thank you so much for your comments, sir. Alrighty. I'm gonna go ahead and close our oh, sir, please go ahead.

Mhmm. My name is Richard a Brown. I've been a realtor in Kitsap County for the last fifty eight years. I don't believe there's anyone left except maybe Jerry Reed and I. So I've become before the Planning Commission many times.

I see no reason to have a boundary line adjustment ordinance period. First of all, why would a surveyor and an engineer be overruled by a staff member that doesn't have a degree in surveying? That's the first thing. The second thing is it's going to cause immense problems in the real estate industry when a person buys an extended coverage, for his home and finds there's a fence line on. If it's moved along like everything else has currently moved around in Kitsap, It'll be blown out of the water and the sale will be ruined.

You can't get anything done right now, so why add more labor to the staff? It isn't necessary. Is this ordinance being put forward by the staff or are we doing it because other counties have done it? It isn't necessary. A survey should be adequate moving property lines without staff interference.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in the room that would like to speak? Okay.

Evening. I'm Fred Deapie, South Kitsap. I am, very much against the BLA, and I'll wait till the public hearing before I go to that. What I would like to do is you to give me direction. I have put in a public record request for data on BLAs. Here's my communication in the last two months. And no matter what I say, how many visits I come here, the data is not being supplied to me. And so I'm looking for your help and direction how I can get the information I would like on this proposal.

Sir, we're not able at this particular portion of the meeting to have a back and forth discussion. However, I believe that staff can get you the proper procedure for you to request that, but we're not able to have a back and forth discussion at this period. I'm so sorry.

Okay. No. Well, let's go to the second part then. I think that more data could be supplied on the proposal for the ordinance. What type of, permitting they would be involved with it, what the checklist would be for the application itself. A lot more information would be really helpful in making the decision on on this process. But I've tried I think it's a type a. Is that correct?

I'm not sure. I'm not sure what you're

What what type of permit is gonna be required if it did go through? Number one permit. And what is the checklist gonna be involved with? How much time is it gonna take to process? What is your projected approval upon receiving the application?

So, Fred, I can't respond during this portion of of

the Okay. It's not meant for I'll talk I'll talk to you later. Maybe you can resolve this. Thank you very much for

your time. Thank you for your comments, sir. Was there another gentleman in the back? Sir, please.

Hi. Hi. I'm a builder and worked at this county for quite a number of years. And I sort of gotta agree with that realtor. There's no need for this.

I mean, it's common sense what's been pro you know, what's been in the works. Been working for so long. I'm thinking maybe you need to look to AI for some input on what you're trying to do. If you ask AI if that's relevant to doing what you're doing to the public and to us and the workers, maybe you might get a better understanding on what you're trying to do.

Does that make any sense? Again, I'm not supposed to be responding to public comment.

Thank you.

Sir Oh, would sir. You

mind stating your name, please? Thank you.

My name? Please. Uh-oh. What is my name? AI.

Okay. Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Alrighty. Are there any additional commenters in the room? Alright. With no more comments, I will now be closing our first general public comment period. The next item on the agenda is a briefing on the equestrian facility code presented by Heather Cleveland, the long range planner.

Thank you, commissioners. I'll just wait for the presentation to come up. Okay. My name is Heather Cleveland. I'm a long range planner with Kitsap County Department of Community Development, and I'm here to do a briefing on the equestrian facility assessment, for you tonight for the Planning Commission.

The items that I'll be covering are purpose, background, objectives, key stakeholders, the scope of work, our timeline, along with the deliverables. So the purpose of the project is to assess regulatory needs for future commercial equestrian facilities, considering rural impacts, economic viability, and the role of equestrian facilities in maintaining rural character. The background on this, the Kitsap County Board of County Commissioners identified this as a priority during the year of the rural in 2025. So it was woven in along with agriculture, and a code was proposed. It was postponed in October 2013 after significant feedback and the keyword being postponed.

And with that, it its own project was created, and that's what I'm create I'm presenting to you tonight. So in 2026, DCD will provide focus the focus and staffing for this particular project. And I will say a shift that has happened for us is considering an assessment where there could be multiple scenarios. So in making this its own project, when it was part of the year of the rural, it was an item under the year of the rural and it related to land use compatibility. Now with its own focus, we're diving into a variety of topics to help inform our recommendations and then potential next steps, and they include identify and evaluate the impacts.

And I will say that's the impacts and the concerns in the co compliance cases are what's bringing this forward. In addition to that, the board of county commissioners making this a priority, in our work. Assessing existing county regulations and enforcement practices. So going through the data, assessing it, how does that match our current regulations, what's missing, evaluate the applicability of the Washington State, Right to Farm Act. So something that was an important distinction is that this what we're proposing is for future equestrian facilities.

But we do wanna unpack that and make sure to share our understanding with that to what's potentially being proposed and to what currently exists. Compile and assess best practices. So that's currently current best practices with model facilities that exist in our community, but also best practices in other communities. Define and assess operational thresholds and intensity levels. This is easier said than done, but what are the concerns, what are the complaints, and where are those thresholds that could lead to regulation.

You evaluate infrastructure environmental impacts, assess which impacts and intensity levels may warrant regulatory oversight, and then woven within that, again, is code already exists. Gather stakeholder input. So we're doing that through a variety of ways, including the equestrian facility working group. They're not creating the code. They're providing feedback as we're going through our process.

We're also conducting a survey and then there will be an opportunity for a workshop in an open house and then assess alignment with existing county code and permitting frame frameworks. Key stakeholders include the Board of County Commissioners, the Planning Commission, DCD staff, the commercial equestrian facility operators and equestrian associations, rural property owners near equestrian facilities, and also community and neighborhood representatives and customers. And I will say woven within this are the folks who utilize the equestrian facilities in addition to those that live next to them. So there's a variety of stakeholders within the last three. The scope of work as it ties to the objectives, so project initiation and data.

So the data review, this is something that was asked of us early on in, the public process in September about the complaints that existed. So we're currently, reviewing the complaints, narrowing them down, sharing our methodology, and coming down to a certain number of cases and and understanding what was the code enforcement with those cases. So that's part of the scope of work. Regulatory and legal, framework assessment, I had mentioned earlier, how does this tie into the Right to Farm Act, how you know, our existing code, best practice and comparative review. I'd mentioned that already.

Impact and intensity analysis. All of this is very similar to the objectives, but turning it into, scope of work, which then is turned into deliverables. Threshold and hold and trigger evaluation, stakeholder engagement, which is woven into our community engagement plan, regulatory alignment and options assessment. Again, what already exists, what could exist, how how would that be implemented, findings and recommendations. This is a key this task right here is, a key decision point in our process, and that will be pulling all of this together and presenting it to DCD leadership and then on to the board of county commissioners, what we what we'll be doing at that point is sharing a variety of scenarios of how this could be moved forward and addressed.

And we have a timeline for that in a future slide. Also, scope of work includes the public process, how depending how this moves forward, and then implementation. Timeline. So February 3, tonight is the well, I should back up. January 21, we had our first of the year equestrian facility working group meeting where we talked we shared the data that we found so far, our next steps, and we're continuing to work together on a on a weekly basis to to receive feedback.

But it is staff who ultimately continue to move things forward. PC briefing tonight, planning commission survey will go out tomorrow. That is for a wide variety of stakeholders. And feedback that we received on the survey that we have proposed was ensuring that it's not biased. But at the same time, we are looking for feedback on code that could be created and implemented.

February 18, a question another a question facility working group meeting. February 25 will be a public workshop, so we'll give a presentation on our findings to date and then welcome additional feedback from the greater community at that time. February 20 it'll actually be February 27. We'll have a DCD leadership meeting where we'll share our findings to date to understand what's the path moving forward. Is it a consolidated timeline?

Is it a regulation? Are there other recommendations that could be a part of this? On March 3, we'll have a planning commission work study where we'll share our findings and some of the scenarios that we will we have presented. And then the the major decision point here is in March, the date to be determined, where we'll have a board of county commissioners work study. All of this to say is this is happening before any sort of draft, is published.

And the next step steps is based on that initial recommendation. The deliverables, we'll weave all of those things in and, you know, this could evolve, but it'll be something like this in the form of a report or the presentation. So existing conditions and regulatory review memo, best practices and comparative analysis summary, impact and intensity assessment technical memo, stakeholder engagement summary, so how have we engaged folks, regulatory alignment and options assessment. So again, that's looking at what already exists, what are the concerns, and looking to align those. Final assessment report, and then regulatory update, pending regulatory decision, so that the assessment will lead to a variety of scenarios that will help us move forward.

And that's it. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Do any of my commissioners have any questions for Heather? I have a question.

Can you define what equestrian facility is so I can have a greater understanding of what exactly you're speaking about when you're speaking of of facility? Is it a two stall, four stall structure with paddocks? Is it an indoor, outdoor arena, round pens? I'm not sure what that exactly means.

That is what we're working to define and also where the level is for enforcement and where it started last year is for commercial. So we're looking to also define that threshold. And that would be part of the draft code would be defining that in addition to defining what's the threshold of commercial. Another feedback that we received, which we agree, is defining a small commercial versus a large commercial. So those are the thresholds that we're looking to define.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Commissioner Vliet?

Thank you, Heather. So with regards to the survey tomorrow, is that kind of just it sounds like that's just being sent to kind of a focused group of individuals and people, in the equestrian world, or is it something for the general public?

It's both. And it includes folks. So in the beginning of the survey, you can check a box of how you're affiliated with equestrian facilities or, you know, the equestrian world. And it's also people who participate in it, their feedback as well. So it's broader, but still focused on that topic.

Perfect. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Any other questions from the commission? I I have a few. Mhmm. Quickly, just tying off on the survey. How will the survey be sent out? Or how would folks be able to find that survey?

I have flyers in the back as well. It's available on the project web page. It will be tomorrow. And it will also be sent via gov delivery to both our year of the rural gov delivery list. And also, we're forming a more a subset of that specifically directed to Equestrian, but it will be shared with both of those.

Wonderful. Thank you. My next question is around the Equestrian group. Is it the same same folks from that we that you had arranged prior last year?

That is correct. It's three three individuals from the three separate districts in addition and then a neighbor representative and Kitsap Conservation District.

Okay. And would you just remind me the frequency that you've been meeting with these folks?

It we ended last year in November, and then we picked up again in January. And we'll be meeting monthly through this process. And I think we'll assess, depending on which direction this goes, how often, you know, when it'll end. But it's monthly.

Okay.

With, I would say, frequent in between connections.

Is that so have you guys just from out my memory here Mhmm. The three meetings to date that you've met with this group?

It was September, October, and November. And then January, you've just met. And then January. But I would say in that process from last year, narrowed down. It was large, and it's narrowed down. So I would say two meetings last year with that more focused group and then the meeting kicking off in January.

Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. And then I do just have maybe not a question, but just a a comment. I one of my questions last year was to get a summation, I guess, of the concerns or complaints.

And around that, one of the asks that I I personally had was maybe like a quantification of how many if if it's multiple addresses. Then also how many of those complaints were remedied. Mhmm. And I know that you had said that you are gonna parse it down to, you know, like a select number of complaints or, like, outstanding issues. However, I would love to see a total quantification just even just in the numbers.

Mhmm. And maybe like a segregation out of if it's certain addresses or areas or districts, things like that. And then absolutely case studies maybe of like prime examples of things that you guys might find glaring. But I think it just would help with understanding the whole if of, you know, what if any issue is happening here.

Agree. And that's the path that we're going down with the assessment. And so we'll present that data to you in the March work study because that will be included in our recommendations for scenarios moving forward.

Okay. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Heather. You're welcome. Alrighty.

I believe that is all of our questions.

Yes. Thank you.

Thank you, Heather. Alright. The next item on our agenda is a work study on the boundary line adjustment code presented by Carrie, Darren, Scott, and Rafe Weisham from DCD. Thank you.

Thanks Commission. When while they get set up I just want to make a few comments on tonight and why we're here tonight and not doing a public hearing and instead doing a work study. So throughout this process we started back in July is when we started looking at a potential BLA ordinance in Kitsap County. A few months later we did our first public outreach. Sorry.

Backing up in July, that was initiated by some conversations I had with kids at Builders Association who recommended a couple surveyors I talked to. I put those in touch with Carrie who started kicked off the process. We've had a couple of outreach events. And then as we initially the public comment hearing for what was to be the public hearing tonight, we had additional comments that we thought were very pertinent. And what we didn't wanna do is make those changes based on those comments and then bring them here tonight without the public getting a chance to see some of the changes we were gonna make based on those.

So our brief to you today is an update from the documents you saw that was supposed to be the public hearing to a work study. And I think what I will say is we've continued to try to ensure that we have an ordinance that addresses some of the problem properties, the problem parcels, and we'll go into that. We've gotten exhibits tonight that will show you just a handful of the parcels that we've run into that have caused building future permitting issues on those parcels because the BLA was illegal. And we'll also talk through some of the things we're trying to do in order to ensure that the process is timely and relatively inexpensive because we do not wanna delay potential sales of homes or building of potential homes on those parcels. Any questions as we get into the brief?

Seeing none.

Great. I'll turn it over to Carrie who will kick off the brief.

Carrie Salee, long range planner. And I'm going to start the briefing tonight. It will be also carried on by Darren Gurney and Scott Diener. So what I will do is just start with public comments and concerns to kind of sum up what we've been hearing over the last few months, some of which were expressed to the planning commissioners at the last couple of meetings that we've had. And I will, by the way, be updating our presentation just a little bit because when this went out, there was some language that we were proposing that we thought about a little bit more, and we've decided to that's one of the reasons that we decided to pull this back, edit it, and bring it back to you again.

And I've also had some additional comments within the last week. So 19 comments from 17 individuals. We've actually had 28 comments now. But I think the subject of the comments has pretty much stayed the same. People have expressed concerns, worries that BLA permits will increase their costs, cause delays and uncertainty about what they can do with their property.

There have been questions about, well, does the county even have a right to regulate BLAs? Does what if local code conflicts with state law? Concerns about restrictive provisions about nonconforming lots, sequential BLAs, eligible properties, you know, who qualifies to do a BLA, and the role of the county in reviewing documents that have been prepared and submitted by a professional license surveyor. I think we had this question asked from the gentleman, Mr. Gustafson, who was up at the podium.

BLAs will be Type I permits, ministerial permits. This is DCD's least expensive and complicated type of permit. We would be setting a review period of a deadline of sixty five days, but hopefully it would actually be done much sooner than that. No public notice, CEPA, or public hearing would be required. I have received a couple of comments suggesting that, in fact, we should require public notice, maybe a public hearing, but then that wouldn't be consistent with how a Type processed.

We're trying to keep it within the existing categories that we have for permits and to keep it simple. Meetings may be recommended before turning in your application. We have an hourly meeting process that you can come in and request to sit down with a planner, discuss your concerns. That's a little more informal and less expensive than coming in for a formal pre app. We do have it in code that we you wanna consider.

You may wanna think about whether you want to do that simply if it would be helpful for you before applying, but it's not required in most circumstances. We do feel that a BLA permit will be considerably less time consuming and expensive than trying to resolve problems once they've already occurred, Once you've gone down and recorded something that turns out you've created a nonconforming or illegal lot, maybe you've been trying to sell it, and maybe someone's bought it. So trying to resolve problems like that when a sale is already in escrow, when someone has already bought a lot from you, they're an innocent purchaser. We've seen a number of issues like that, which Darren and Scott will go through some examples. So just getting into the legal aspects of BLA regulation.

In the RCW subdivision law, BLA is not a subdivision. You can't create more lots than have already been approved, and it's not actually regulated by the Washington subdivision code. It's an exemption from that process. But we do have the authority to regulate boundary line adjustments. The county is granted broad authority to regulate land use.

RCW 3,632, the Planning Enabling Act 3,670 authorizes local regulation of land use, and 3670B reinforces that authority for review processes and requirements. The prosecuting attorney did make a double check of concerns about this and has assured us that, yes, in fact, the county can require a permit for VLAs. So a VLA is intended to adjust boundary lines between two adjacent or abutting lots. It's not meant to adjust tracks, which could be anything from a storm water track, critical areas tracked, things which are not meant to be developed at all. It also cannot be used to adjust easements.

This could be an access easement, utility easement. It does not adjust right of way. If you have a road that, you know, you're trying to vacate or something like that, this is not the way to do it. And tax title strips, which are these small, very narrow strips that we often see, they're they're old, running between properties When people had the option of actually giving land to the county if they couldn't pay their taxes, they would give just a little piece of that. Those also are not considered developable, and they're not eligible for adjustment with another lot in this way.

We have also tried to address the state subdivision law 5,817 that prevents sequential short subdivisions from circumventing full subdivision review. By this I mean if you come in, and let's say that you do a short plat, five lots. Then if you want to come in in six months and subdivide it further, and then you've created 10, and then you do it again and you've created 20, you have created all these lots, but you haven't gone through full subdivision review. So all of the things that DCD would be looking at for impact fees, for circulation, for schools, for police, for everything that we try to make sure that we deal with as as lots are created. We've seen a pattern where sequential short plats can actually go around that process and create a subdivision that has few connections, that doesn't pay the fees, that doesn't do the improvements that they would often be required to do as part of a subdivision.

So we are going to propose in code that we would prohibit further subdivision within five years. And that's what we already do with short subdivisions, so that is consistent. There are a number of nonconforming or illegal lots out there already, and we do intend to provide a path in code. It's already there, but we are strengthening it in what we're proposing to review the lots that have resulted from previous BLAs and that have created those lots. So there is a way to get to conformance.

There is a way that we will sit down and we will review those, and we will try to see if we can come up with a developable property. We're not just saying they're illegal forever. So the next thing is really important. We have heard consistently from the beginning, and it's a very worthy concern, that what does it mean? You know, planners double checking a licensed surveyor and correcting their work or telling them they're wrong?

No. We are not doing that. We have never proposed it as part of this code update. We have never proposed that DCD would be double checking, questioning the work of a licensed surveyor, or sending it back because we feel that the survey is just wrong. Now we may see some inconsistencies or problems or things like that that Will discussed, but in no way are we intending to step into the place of a licensed surveyor.

That's not our role. That's not our authority. We don't have the ability to do that. Surveyors are the ones who are responsible to their clients, to their applicants, for the quality of their work. They are they are insured, for their accuracy and for whatever effects their survey would have on their clients.

So we would expect the applicant or the client and the surveyor to be the two parties who work out any problems that they might have with the survey itself. It would not be us. We would not be a party to that. What we are going to do is review county development regulations such as zoning, dimensional criteria about minimum width area of a lot. We are not proposing to look at critical areas in shoreline code.

That was something that we had in there earlier, and after much discussion, we felt that that was actually going to add a lot of complication, expense, and possibly undue restriction on a lot before we ever even had a development proposal. So that is something and I'll this a little more, but we are not proposing to look at those things at all. We're going to be looking at drainage, access, buildability, but critical areas and shoreline will have to be looked at when you actually come in with a development proposal. Again, DCD does not review a surveyor's work. We review the code only.

BLAs have to meet zoning, dimensional, and area requirements. There are some limited exceptions. Cannot violate existing plat conditions. If you're trying to adjust two lots that are within a recorded plat, you can't do something in your adjustment that would violate the plat conditions or alter them or require a plat alteration. This is not the process for doing a plat alteration. Can impact drainage to your neighboring properties. Again, forget the critical areas and buffers. Take that one out. Water supply and septic systems will be reviewed by the Kitsap Health District as part of the application. Public works will be looking at access and utilities.

The properties proposed to be addressed by a BLA must have suitable access and a buildable site, or actually it's a building site, and that is defined in our land use and development code. And it must not create a need for future variances or exceptions to development code. So to me, this is also very important for the applicant to understand because we are not currently proposing to require, again, that you come in with a critical areas report already done. It's not required that you show critical areas on your map, but you may want to do it for your own protection when you draw new lines. You may want to know where the critical areas are, what the buffers would be.

Because, again, when you draw that, if you happen to draw it through where a wetland is running, you can't come in and say, need a critical areas exception or a variance to change my buffer because of this line that I drew on my property. Okay? So that's a self created hardship. So if you think you have wetlands, if you think you have stream, any other critical area like this, we're not telling you that you have to show it and deal with it right now, but it may be advisable under certain circumstances. The BLA cannot create public expense, which means that if you need to have a road extended in order to be able to serve both of your lots or however many lots are not served by private access, that's something that you would have to do yourself.

The public would not be responsible, the county would not be responsible for funding a new public road or a widened public road. A BLA also cannot cross a road or a right of way, so if you have a lot on one side of a road and another lot on the other side, you can't adjust across a road. That doesn't work. They need to be directly abutting. And so now I will hand this over to Darren, who will give some examples of BLAs that have occurred without the county's oversight, and he'll talk about the results and some of the effects it's had on those applicants and their buyers. So one moment, please.

Okay. Am I coming through all great? Alright. Apologize. My eyes are changing now, so it's gonna be in between glasses to see that and then this. So So first of all, I appreciate what Carrie was mentioning there. My name is Darren Gurney. I'm the current planning supervisor. So we deal with the permit reviews. And when things come across our desk, we're the ones that are looking at legal lot determination after they these things have occurred.

So what you'll see from me tonight is some examples. I had a couple of things to just briefly go over. So a couple of concepts here. When we receive a boundary line adjustment, a parcel that's a result of that, if one of the parcels in a BLA is not allowable by code, the entire boundary line adjustment is invalid, basically. So all the parcels affected by that BLA.

That makes a difference when anybody else comes in for a building permit. We have to look at that. When we get to what it is that's the most difficult so far, when we're looking at these things, it really comes down to it's decreasing the lot area or the dimensions to lessen as allowed by the zone. So for example, in rural residential, you have a five acre minimum parcel size, and you have a 140 foot width and depth minimal requirement. When we see a BLA that goes below those figures, if it's creating that issue, that's a problem.

If it is already smaller than it is allowed, if it makes it even more smaller or more nonconforming, that presents a problem with a BLA. It makes it an unbuildable parcel. The other one, as she mentioned, is a plat alteration. And the big things that we see with the plat alterations is when you're trying to add an easement or when you're trying to change the perimeter boundary of a plat. Those are two big ones.

And then the other is when you have a roadway and you start shifting the lines around to where traffic is going to enter roadways at different locations has impacts to traffic. So those are kind of the basic premises here. It's important to at least acknowledge the critical area piece because zoning code in title 17, critical areas ordinance, title 19, and shoreline code in title 22, every variance process that we have, it identifies that the owner or previous owners cannot be the cause of the need for a variance. So if you do create the need, like we're too close to this wetland or stream or too close to a parcel line, you can't use the BLA shift as your justification to move a project forward. So with that said, I'm just going to go through some examples, try and keep it a little bit brief.

So this is an example. The color coding that you'll see on the the diagrams here, green is are the parcels that are involved in the BLA. And then the pink lines that are highlighted, those are lines that stayed the same. The green lines within that, those are what have changed. So in this circumstance, you have a large parcel on the top end here.

Things were shifted around, and now you have these horizontal parcels. They ended up being smaller than the parcel size, which rendered it non buildable. For our next example, this one, there's one piece missing from this, but this is an example that actually came out backwards, my apologies, but it started with the configuration on the bottom, so that should all these four parcels are all part of a short plat. It switched to the configuration here on the top, and parcel C became smaller than what was allowed by the zone. In addition, there's an access easement that was never shown in the boundary line adjustment, so when we're reviewing this for a project, we don't see a legal access provided to B, C, and D.

There was a correction made, and the easement was added back, and it wasn't extinguished. But then there was an augmentation of that easement to make it a little bigger. That easement change based on our subdivision codes is an alteration to the plat. So that has to go through that process. This is one of our more involved boundary line adjustments.

So I'm gonna I have some notes I need to read to this one. So the configuration you see on the screen, what is not shown is that those horizontal rectangles, they look like a single parcel, but actually, they are multiple tax slots within that block. So it's like a city block layout. So you could have 20 individual lots that for tax purposes, they've been combined, but you can segregate those out. And then what you'll see here is that they've been reconfigured into the equivalent of a subdivision in a rural area.

So there's 134 resultant lots that you'll see in this slide, which is difficult to see, but you have 134 resultant lots. 11 are in an urban low residential zone, 123 are in rural residential. Of the 11 lots in that zone, these resultant lots were larger than is allowed by code. And in the rural component, the lots are smaller than allowed by code, which would render these nonbuildable parcels. The cumulative boundary line adjustments resulted in a development that exceeds the density requirements of the rural residential zone, so one to five acres.

These are more about an acre. And the cumulative boundary line adjustments resulted in urban development on land that is mostly in a rural location without receiving the review that Carrie had alluded to for subdivisions. And this is important for stormwater emergency access, frontage improvements for sidewalks on the roadways for the residents there, recreational facilities and landscaping, street lighting, you know, some pretty big safety features that you miss if you don't go through a subdivision. And finally, it created this pseudo subdivision without the input of public process, which is a big component of our subdivision code, is to allow for the public to provide comment, especially if it's in your neighborhood, you'd like to be able to have some input. So in the what you're showing here is that that initial sub boundary line adjustment created the parcels in this green area, and there are some larger pieces in there that were then further redistributed through an additional boundary line adjustment, and that's all in this location.

And each of those phases of boundary line adjustments were not technically allowed by code. The image that you see here on the top, this is another example. This is actually just to the west of what you just saw. And you have the pink line going right through the middle, that's where the line was, along with the green vertical line. So it seems pretty innocent, but then you take this the parcels and reconfigure them to where they're all horizontal equal size, well, you've made another lot that is too small for the zone.

The project below this, this is one where it's a simple the boundary line shifted from this left edge, came up into the corner, and that created a parcel that was smaller than allowed by code. This is an example where you had a pretty minor piece, but you had a boundary line from the top here was shifted down by 20 feet. And this actually is a product of two short plots, so the perimeter boundary changed, and our code requires that you have plot alteration when you change a perimeter boundary. This is similar to what I was talking about. We have these multiple lots in a tight formation, and it's actually in a rural location.

This redistribution created a parcel. Most of them started as 4,000 square feet. This created one that was 3,900 square feet, so we can't allow development to occur on these. It also created an easement that added an access point from the south that originally was from the north. So it's also a plat alteration.

This is one of the more interesting ones that we've seen recently. So you have a short plat that's shown on the top figure. The green parcel is the one that is a subject of a boundary line adjustment, but we have a short a subdivision request for the parcel above. Well, what came out of this is that this square parcel that it's green above, a boundary line adjusted shifted the external perimeter boundary of this plat to come out into this area to the west. Subsequent short plat also subdivided this area.

Now for this person to subdivide up above, they need to do a plat alteration to the original plat, as well as a plat alteration to the subsequent one that was through a BLA that technically would not have been allowed. So it's just trying to dive into, like, there's lot of complexity that we encounter, and it's for us to research and find this information and to bring this forward and deliver it to a property owner is difficult, to say it nicely. It's difficult for everybody involved. So Scott is going to go into detail on some of these others.

Thank

you, Darren. I think Darren did a good job explaining some of the issues that we face with BLAs and the challenges with reviewing those and processing seeing those and trying to maintain a stable and legal lot supply. Here's some more examples. This is a what you see in the long lots up top was a BLA. Well, ordinarily, that's a rural subdivision.

And so it didn't have benefit of review by the neighbors. Nothing was checked against topography or critical areas, which would have ordinarily been done with the more complicated short plat process. But that wasn't done here. So effectively, we've got a subdivision that began the basis for further subdivision. Let's make sure I didn't go up.

Okay. So here's one that effectively, can see that on the left side, there's a series of BLAs that were done. What's interesting about this is that the very bottom of the left side is a 3,000 square foot lot. These are rural. So it would appear, I think, to to many people, it would be difficult to develop a 3,000 square foot lot with septic and a reserve system.

Then on the right side, what we have are some BLAs that took over some vacated right of ways. And we would have liked to review this, and I think public works would have liked to review this to make sure that it was done properly and that the land was actually seeded properly through this BLA, which probably was done originally when it was vacated some years ago. So this came in together, and it was rather an interesting concept. Okay. So this is you can see in the green, you can see here the of the pre state of what we're looking at, these two lots, B and D.

This one is interesting because it's a three part. So then they took those two lots and they turned them sideways, created nonconforming lots. And when we say nonconforming lots, we mean it doesn't meet the area or certain lot dimensions that would ordinarily be required in that zone. I think it's important to understand that. So they created non conforming lots, then they created this, which is defies good planning logic in many ways.

I'm fairly convinced that there weren't monuments or pins set for these lot lines and corners. So good luck in trying to find where your property lines are in this particular layout. And, you know, GMA also promotes sort of a logical and orderly development. If this were to come in through a plat, we would say no. You've got to do something that's a little more logical.

This one is a circumstance where you've got this pre configuration, and then after it became like this. So this lot over here, I can scroll to it, right here, became much more non conforming. It became extremely nonconforming, really, in one sense, while this property grew and was able to was purchased by a developer to build a house. I reached out to the developer and I said, do you realize you've created a nonconforming lot up here in the corner? And they said that they were aware of that.

And I said, well, you've created a difficult situation for this owner because they have an illegal lot, and we can't issue a permit for this lot on this lot in the future. I reached out to the the person who owns that lot in the corner, and I said, do you realize the deal that you you've made, which hopefully you can undo, has created an illegal lot for you where you won't be able to get a permit on your lot in the future except for to maintain the existing house, and it's a small house. The response I got was that they didn't have the time or the money or the energy to try and correct it or fight this. And so they said they basically said, I guess we'll have to leave it in the family. So that's an example of what can happen when you've got an illegal lot and nobody has the resources to try and fix that after it's been recorded.

This is an example of an illegal lot and what can happen when there's no resources. This lot is not eligible to be developed. The person that bought the lot tried to reach out to the seller when they found that out. The seller, in the buyer's words, told him to pound sand. And then the buyer moved away. I'm sorry, the seller moved away. The buyer could not sell this property, still not has been able to sell this property. The buyer passed away a couple of years ago, and this is still in the family with nothing that they can do. The best they can hope for is that one of the adjacent properties will buy it and merge that property under theirs. But there's only one developed property adjacent, and that's the property to the immediate east.

And I think they realize that perhaps this property will go at a fire sale at some point. Really, there's no other choice. So that's another example of what can happen with a legal lot. This is an example of a straight plat. This was a 500 lot unit that DCD reviewed.

And it was really, really complicated. And I just bring this up because we review way more complicated projects, planning projects, than what we're looking at or proposing for BLAs. BLAs are going to be a very quick review. And a little more to the point, here's some of the information you see on the face of that platen. And I can't really read it, but there's vertical datum, there's horizontal datum, there's the legal description, there's a basis of bearing. There's a whole bunch of information on the face of this platen that we don't review. The PLS is certified. It's a stamped surveyor. We take their their word at what they're submitting to us. What we look at is do they have are they meeting the proper density?

That's a state requirement. They got to meet density. Are they meeting the open space requirements? For example, with this particular plat, they needed to have a certain amount of open space tracks for pocket parks, trails, tot lots, those kinds of things. When these come in, they come in at a 60% concept through DCD. And that's where we truth out. Do you have good drainage? Do you have good and legal access? Are all your lots meeting the requirements of density and vice versa? So there's a lot that we do review, but none of it is questioning the PLS' data that they provide on a plat.

I think that's important because we've heard that quite a bit that, know, who are you to review my stamped work? We're not reviewing your stamped work. We're reviewing to make sure that it also comports with zoning requirements. That's the end of my presentation.

I forgot to mention Ray Fleishman, director of community development, Kitsap County for the record. This is just a few of the issues that we've come across in my fourteen months as director with BLAs and with both somebody who's created a BLA and then comes in to to build on their home or somebody who has bought a property that was was done through a BLA, and we had to tell them that they are unable to build on their property. Potentially, lots of investment put into a a parcel that they now can't build on. I also wanna mention one last thing because we have a lot of comments on review time and how this is gonna create a lot of extra reviews for the county, and we don't have the capacity to do so. I will just say that I wanna highlight one that there's a difference between boundary line adjustments and boundary line agreements.

So a boundary line agreement is when you're trying a property owner trying to fix a line, when the line is potentially in dispute or, they and their subsequent neighbor are unable to determine from written records where that line is. That would be over the counter. We would agree that's in a boundary line agreement, and we would send them on their way. No charge. Go record it. You gotta come into the county office anyway, same building, one floor up, take an elevator, set of stairs. It shouldn't be a huge burden to go record that agreement. For adjustments, last year, the county processed 56 adjustments. 56 adjustments would be adding less than 1% of the turnover permits that we review in Kitsap County. So it's not like we're adding an additional 10% of permits to our plate.

We're adding less than 1% to our plate based on the 56 that were done in 2025 and forty nine that were done in 2024. I can keep going back, but it's about that number historically. With that, I'll end our portion and turn it over to you guys for questions. Thank you.

Thank you so much, staff. Thank you for your presentation and your time. Do any of my commissioners have any questions? Please.

So the examples that you were providing for us to look at tonight, are those were those prepared by developers and recorded on their own? Were they produced by property owners and recorded on their own? Were they produced by surveyors and recorded without going through DCD? Just curious.

So what we've seen historically is a mix of all that. Some landowners feel confident that they can do it on their own. I think Carrie is an example of somebody who had good confidence to do one on her own. We also see surveyors for people who are just out of their wheelhouse. But what the recorder is doing is recording anything you put in front of them regardless of who it's prepared by.

They simply wanna know that certain recording requirements are met, like margins and those kinds of things. They are not checking anything. Is it you know, some of the things we we don't see with with these BLAs is dimensions and areas. And and we find that well, that's a very curious case because that's usually the biggest flag on a BLA is area or dimensions. And so we find that maybe it's because landowners just aren't aware or developers want to do something really quick. But it's prepared by both people that that kind of understand what to do, surveyors and those that are kind of maybe out of the wheelhouse, but can get something recorded.

But to answer your other part of your question, commissioner, is that we don't review any of these because there's no policy in place. So none of these come through us initially when they're recorded. We only see them when somebody comes to develop that parcel.

Mhmm. And

and if I could just add to that, that may mean that we have well, we really don't know how many lots we have laying dormant out there right now waiting to be developed where when they come in, we'll say, you got a problem here. So

for this BLA process, anybody who's going to be submitting an application for a BLA is going to have to provide a survey with the application?

We would would advise that they use a surveyor, and here's why. The surveyor provides insurance for all parties involved. So a surveyor stamps that BLA and now you as a landowner can rely on that. And if there's a problem down the road, including with the buyer, they can reach back out to the surveyor and say, what happened here? You know, we've looked at this and and the lot isn't closed properly, for example.

Thank you. So sorry. Just to finish that, I just wanted for clarity, you said yes, a survey is required or no, it's just highly recommended?

We haven't haven't fully just I I I wanna hesitate to say we are Okay. Right now, we our discussion is that we would require a survey. And for and there but there are some boundary line adjustments that we would take over the counter that would not require a survey. If you're trying to move your property line 10 feet to to put a fence that was put up on the wrong property and you just agreed with your neighbor that we wanna move this 10 feet so the fence is on the correct property line, That would be an over the counter which we would not require a surveyor. So so I so I hesitate.

So it's a big one's yes. We wouldn't need the ones we could determine that are over the counter no cost. Then we would not necessarily require a surveyor for that process.

Okay.

I think that's the best way to provide the answer.

And if I can add to that, we will provide a brochure and checklist for this. But I think that brochure will strongly encourage a surveyor. Certainly when you're turning your lot 90 degrees or you're creating differing shaped kind of parcels from what was originally existing. But that there might be others where maybe an attorney or a land use consultant is appropriate for that.

Okay. And then just back to your comment, Rafe. Is there going to be like black and white clarity in regards to what would be in your purview an easy neighborly thing? I know you said, like, agreement versus adjustment, but talking about BLAs. You said, like, if it's something simple like a fence, then that could be over the counter. Is there somewhere that someone can a member of the public, say a private landowner doesn't want to hire somebody to do this for them, that they could go and see, Okay, I should just come in, or I do need to hire a surveyor? Or how do they make that determination? Is that gonna be somewhere for folks?

So we will attempt to be as clear as possible. Yeah. We also offer fifteen minute free consultations where you can come in and we can provide assistance with whether or not you need to actually provide a permit or we can just sign that over the counter. So but yes, if we attempt to provide as much clarity and we will do outreach and information on the website in order to make sure everybody can understand. If if they can't for whatever reason, they can come in for free and we will provide that consultation.

Okay. Thank you. Darren or Carrie or both.

Oh, okay. I just wanted to make it clear that primarily we receive or when we see the BLA, when we have a building permit, it's typically prepared by a surveyor professional because they have to have the vernacular and the legal skill set to describe the parcels, not just put a map together. So it does require some expertise. I think what we're getting at is we wouldn't require necessarily one or the other, but when you're filing something like that, highly suggested that you have a professional doing it unless you are an expert in tax descriptions and things like that.

Sure. Thank you. Carrie, did you want to add anything?

That is exactly what I was going to say. The average person probably is not going to be writing accurate legal descriptions of the before and after, not necessarily knowing how to do the map and do the documents properly so that they can be recorded. So again, it's not that people can't do it, but most people probably don't have that skill and they would be better off relying on a surveyor who understands how to do this. Because if you have a conflict between a map and the legal description, you know, when you sell it, you're potentially creating a problem for both yourself and the buyer.

So Yeah. Absolutely.

And I will just say that the the cost of a surveyor, you know, don't I won't say whether that's significant or insignificant because money is to different people. Some form of money is significant, to others it's not. What's insignificant to Elon Musk is probably very significant to myself. However, the cost of correcting the problem is way more than the cost of the surveyor upfront. So you've got if you do if you hire a surveyor, it gets done correctly. Not only is that insured, but the cost of fixing potential problems in the future is way less, or sorry, way more than it would cost you to hire a surveyor in the first place.

Sure. Thank you. I do just have one more question. I'm so sorry, my commissioners, I didn't ask anybody. But my next question, actually, Carrie, when you were touching on that you're not going to be doing, like, requiring, like, critical areas, things like that with this, One of my one of the things that you had mentioned, what like, I guess, example you gave is if somebody does a BLA and, you know, it it makes a smaller parcel, and now you don't have the setbacks needed for whatever critical area you have.

That's just you know what mean? You kinda have to that's a I believe you said it was like a self imposed or, like, you created that problem for yourself. So I don't remember the language. However, that's important to note. I'm I'm glad that was a really great example.

My question around that is you're now gonna have this requirement and we're coming from the ethos that we're trying to look out for not only the taxpayers, but we're also looking out for the county future development, future future taxpayers that wanna move here because Kitsap County is great. My question is, is there gonna be what is the expected disclosure or, like, way that you're gonna be communicating out with folks? Hey. Just a big glaring FYI. If these things all need to be taken into consider, we're gonna hope that you take these things into consideration because it's a 100% on you.

Should this be the end result? And just something like that, I guess, maybe for taxpayers, so anybody. But yeah, please.

So I want to kick it off, then we'll turn it over to Carrie to answer your question. But one of the things we began with and we saw this as a menu of in our menu of alternatives that many jurisdictions do is trying to ensure that you have a buildable site. And the best way to ensure that you have a buildable site is to make sure, especially in Kitsap County, that you understand your critical areas. And we decided that what that means for a BLA to ensure that they have a buildable site is they've got to evaluate critical areas, submit a wet submit a wetlands report or something like that. And that really killed the intent of the program.

And I think maybe was a concern of some of the comments we got that now you're looking at really extending a protected extending and making this a protracted process, The costs go up because you got to hire a biologist or something like that. And so we realized that backing that out was probably in the public's best interest. But then we also decided that we would have some disclaimers that would go on the face of the BLA and that the landowner would have to acknowledge. And I will turn it over to Carrie for that.

Thank you. So just following on with what Scott said, that's a really good point that you made. And we, in the most recent revisions that you would have just received, there is a new section on the last page of the new draft code, that's Section J. And what we're saying to the applicant is on the application form, there's going to be a section in which you're acknowledging that when you come in for VLA approval, that doesn't guarantee that you can develop it in future. Critical area and shoreline review has not been performed by DCD for your properties.

That, you know, we may be have to require additional information studies when you do come in for a permit to build a house or or do some type other type of land use, like a further subdivision. That and this we discussed this earlier, that property configurations that you created as as part of a BLA, if you are too close to a wetland or that it's your entire property, that's not a justification for a variance or an exception. So you will see that. You'll read that and sign it when you and apply for BLA, and then because we also want to protect a potential buyer, a buyer's not going to see an application. So we are requiring that the face of the BLA, the recorded documents, will also state these things, these restrictions, limitations on what we can guarantee through the creation of the BLA.

When someone is proposing to buy a property, they'll get a title report. The BLA will be part of the title report, and this will be prominently displayed, on the face so the buyer also is protected.

Wonderful. Thank you very much. Do any of my commissioners have any questions? Kane, please.

Yeah. I have a question about the extent of the problem. It's been asked by other members of the public before. This is useful presentation. And a side question if I may too. There were two presentations, right? Scott yours and I'm sorry, name? Darren. And Scott, yours was provided in a handout that we received earlier. And Darren's, is yours going to be available as well that we can I

thought it was available, but I'm sure we can make it available?

It should have been all the same packet.

Yeah. I did the first part of it and then the next slide just kind of transitioned into Scott's.

Did it? Okay. So my PDF is Great. In any case, I mean, is So Scott's was, what, 17 or so examples. And so that would be in the numerator as it were as a percentage of the whole over some span of time. What is the denominator? I mean I appreciate, okay, there were last year they were 56 and the year before 49. How big a problem is this? So Have you made

an attempt I to I would It depends on who you ask. If you ask the person who bought a parcel and is coming in to develop it and is told that they can't develop on their parcel, it's a huge problem. If you tell the person who did a testamentary division had 15 acres and said, wanna keep two and a half and I'm selling 12 and a half to my neighbor and then comes in to develop that two and a half acre parcel and we say, you can't do that. You don't have the property. It's an illegal lot. It's a huge problem. So So your to to your point, sometimes it it's once again it's relative. Right? 1% of the problem if if we're talking about murders in the country, that's a huge problem. Right?

1% of the problem if we're talking about petty theft, maybe not. So I I hesitate to say how prevalent is the problem. If we identify a problem that we can solve in the county through code, then we wanna do that because it's ultimately, BLA ordinances are good planning procedures for any jurisdiction to avoid all the issues that were described by Scott and Darren. And I'll just add that, you know, we have we try to abide by the rule

in planning that you don't create code for for a a one off problem. It just doesn't make sense. But we've got examples and examples.

Audience, And please, I'm going to ask to remain a respectful decorum, please. Thank you.

And so when I look through my folder, so first realize that I don't get a lot of these. Darren gets most of these. But I get some that get escalated. And so I looked through my folder for about two years. And again, mine is just a short sample of what we really get.

And so what I provided in the last half of the exhibits, that's what I was able to pull out of the last couple of years. I will also observe that when we last looked at this in 2012, we looked at it in conjunction with revising Title 16 in its entirety. And Title 16 is our land division and development code. And we did a very deep dive into the previous, I think it was seven or eight years before. And we had a stack and I was looking at it today that was like this tall.

It probably was four inches thick of problems that we had experienced. Same kinds of problems we talked about today. And what came out of that discussion was not a recognition that it wasn't a problem. The commissioners and the planning commissioners generally agreed that there was a problem, not all the planning commissioners, but most. And the board understood that there was a problem, but they weren't convinced that DCD would have a process to manage an applicant BLA application process.

And so on that, there was a pivot decision that ruled against it because they weren't convinced about DCD being able to maintain a process for BLAs and it died on the vine. But so there's not really been a dispute that there's a problem out there. It's been concerns about how those are going to be managed by DCD if they come in.

I will give you exact numbers though because I have some not recently, but when because Scott mentioned 2012, they looked at the last three years when they were looking at BLAs. In 2008, one hundred and sixty seven were recorded. 11% of them had issues with either legal descriptions, ownership, or other zoning to mention issues. In 2009, 142 were recorded. 13% of them had issues.

In 2010, 110 were recorded. Thirteen percent of those had issues. I acknowledge that that is from fifteen, sixteen years ago, but a pretty consistent number across that of 11 to 13% had some sort of issue with how it was done. Or not so much how it was done from a surveyor perspective. Don't think that was the issue. Was more of the lot that it created. It would have created some concerns.

And I can add one more bit to that since I've been dealing with these this last year. Probably have about 30 this is definitely an assumption, just kind of looking at the diagrams that we provided and some of the other things that are in my head, probably about 30 to 40 parcels that we would say are unbuildable and we've had to let the homeowner know or the landowner know, we can't grant you a building permit. We can't grant you an engineering permit. We can't we can't grant you these permits because the parcel is illegal. So there's approximately 30 times that we have to tell somebody, you can't do this.

That's I I don't know about you guys. I don't I don't care to do that, but I'm trying to take the emotion out of it and just keep be strict to the to what's happening. So I would say, from my perspective, 30 parcels is a lot. That's 30 times that we have to go into detailed research analysis, sometimes up to two hours, sometimes it comes up to a full day of research in past records where you have five BLAs that occurred on the same parcels over the course of twenty years. So it is a substantial amount of time and effort that goes into these things, not just from us, but from those who are preparing them as well.

Did you have any additional comments or questions?

I did have a question about pressing the point on how to define what's significant, what's over the counter. If you leave it to subjectivity, in my mind it's a double edged sword. Because on the one hand you've got a reasonable DCD staffer, right? Who says, no this is easy. And those who come behind you, right?

You retire in the next or you move on to a different position. Those who fill your position, I can open the microphone, of a different perspective. And so the more clarity one can offer and say this is an over the counter, this is not, the more predictability it offers.

Yeah. Oh, go ahead.

That that's one of the things why we're here today in a work study and not in a public hearing is because that is one of the things we're still trying to flush out. And we owe it to you and the and the public to flush out what exactly that is. So that was that was the piece as we try to continue to remove costs and time for applicants. That is what we're trying to flush out. So yes, but I acknowledge that that needs to be clear and what I have said and I told Darren that today, is I said it it can't it doesn't need it doesn't it not only do our predecessors have to or people that take over for us have to be able to understand it and interpret it the same way as us, But but the people who take over for them have to be able to do it.

Because I can turn over with my the guy who's gonna take over for me. But then I have to rely on the next turnover and that may not happen. So it's gotta be clear for not only the person I turn over with, but then a second round. And clear for anybody in the public who's trying to apply for it as well, just as importantly, if not more importantly.

I'll just say our our our the way DCD looks at its processes and procedures, they're they're constantly under review for improvement. And unfortunately sometimes that takes a while to do. But where I'm headed is we provide checklists and opportunity for people to be very well informed FAQs on what it is they want to do so that they've got an eyes wide open approach to a BLA.

Kane, do have any other questions or comments?

Yeah, how do you go about that? How do you define how do you go through the process? We haven't yet decided what's over the counter. How do we determine that?

With a lot of discussion. I mean, there's processes. Right? Process improvement. It's a lot of us have been trained in different types of process improvement, gone through Greenbelt, Yellowbelt. So we I mean, I could go into you know, we could talk for an hour about different process improvements and different techniques for doing that. But ultimately, it's taking a look at it's throwing ideas, examples. How would we handle this? And we continue to refine and we try to throw show holes in the problem. Right?

We try to find we try to play that that the red side if you will to take an example from Amazon or the opposite side. Right? Somebody you try to be the enemy who infiltrates the system and find holes and try to fill those holes to make sure that there are no gaps and we covered every situation out there. It just takes a little bit of time and which is why we're not here at a public hearing today. In a work study so that we give ourselves some time to continue to refine that process.

And I'll just add that once we once we get something approved and the effective date won't be right away because now we've got to invest energy in in making everything happen that we said would happen. But we've got staff that's all they do is look at process improvement. That's their sole responsibility. And they're very good at it. So they're they're at the table with us breaking down the process, punching holes in things and until we have something that we then can take to a focus group and say, what do you guys think? Does this work? Is there something we need to tweak? And so there are there are several approaches to that as as director Rafe mentioned. But we're confident that this is something we can do. We've done more complicated stuff than this in the past.

Kane, any other questions or comments?

Yeah, just on the red side, right? So for example, you have somebody who wants to build something and you have to make the hard statement that it's unbuildable. And that's awkward and it's costly and no one wants to relay that information and yet it's an unbuildable site. The other side too is the deal that's disrupted by process. There was a surveyor who submitted comment a couple of months ago who cited an example of somebody who waited and waited.

And there was one example that was it was three or four months and there was another example in the next paragraph of something that was nine or ten months. And the latter example is an extreme extreme case where the seller was so encumbered by process, actually died before it was finished. Another case, it was a high cost and it was four months and it was nearly a deal that was broken because in the intervening time, interest rates climbed and the buyer's interest waned and it almost fell apart. So that would be the other side to yes, it's a hard conversation. It's a hard piece of information to deliver. Deals are disrupted by process and cost as well.

Sure. Those are all examples from other counties. I can't comment on why those counties didn't review them in a timely manner. What I can say is that we have our type one is 65. Our type two is a 100, our type two is one seventy. We're meeting those requirements right now. Building permits, we're doing them in thirty days, first review, fourteen days, second review, all within requirements. So there are people on this audience that probably don't would not agree with that, but that's because they haven't resubmitted a permit in the last six months. Our our timelines over the last six months, we are meeting our requirements. We'll continue to while I'm here, that's my my challenge to staff is to continue to meet those.

I I can't speak for other jurisdictions on why they took four, six months, nine months, somebody died when waiting for a permit. I can't.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. You're good. If our commissioners, any other questions, comments, David? Nothing? David Fleet, please go ahead.

Yeah, just want to first make a comment, say thanks to DCD for putting such an excellent presentation together because I think there's been a lot of questions and concerns about the fact that we maybe don't even need to be looking at this. I I guess their presentation made it very clear to me that we do need to be looking at this, and I'm glad we're doing something about it. So so props to DCD for that. I guess I, you know, I come from I don't I'm I'm not a developer and I'm not in the building industry. The reason I serve on planning commission is for the natural environment and to look out for the natural environment over of Kitsap County that I think so much of us love.

There's a lot of reasons a lot of us don't live on the other side of the water. And because we live in a really beautiful place. And so I guess I just hope that the only reason that, you know, the critical areas and shorelines code aren't, kinda used in this BLA approach early on is just because of cost and the type one. I mean, I, I see I get that, But I can I can see some issues with not if that if that's not being integrated in early on and then either, you know, the person who wants to develop the property is frustrated because they're like, didn't you tell us early on? Went through this whole process and now you're saying we have this critical area that, you know, two of the five, you know, parcels that want to develop, we can't do anymore because the setback's not enough.

What kind of, you know, what what kind of how are you guys running this? Why are guys doing it like this? And so I get the point about the cost, but I think we need to really think about the fact of the problems that that could create if if cost is is is really the only issue we're thinking about. And then, Rafe, if you could clarify, thank you for bringing that I I don't come at this from a developer or the building community. So boundary line agreement and a boundary line adjustment so we're talking about agreements right now.

So and with the new proposed, we're just proposed language that we're going through. If I'm trying to understand agreement versus adjustment. So if my if my neighbor who owns five acre parcel wants to let's say things change and they're able to subdivide it into two and a half acres in the future or whatever. Do I ever need to be notified about that or not as a next door neighbor for a BLA?

Yeah. So so the subdivision is not allowed through a BLA. So you can't create so in that example, you wouldn't your neighbor wouldn't be able to subdivide his parcel. Right? BLA is simply the movement of a line, not the creation of a line. Okay. So and then to clarify, boundary line agreement is not what we're talking about here. We are talking about a code to to to discuss boundary line adjustments. A boundary line agreement, as I talked mentioned before, Mhmm. Our CAW talks about that.

It's it's an agreement that allows property owners to fix an area where a line is currently in dispute or they're unable to determine where that line actually exists based on current records. So that's what an agreement is. Just for for note, there were last year, 13 agreements done in Kitsap County. In 2024, 12 agreements done in Kitsap County.

Okay. Thanks for that, and thanks again for the great presentation. I really appreciate all the work you put into it.

Thank you. I just have one question. What's next? When what what's next with this? When do we get to hear more? Is that even determined at this time? Because I know there's a little bit of kind of, like, reconfiguring and and going back not to the drawing board, but somewhat, you know, what's what can we expect or the public?

Yeah. We've been at the drawing board since coming into this. So some of the things we have been adjusting, rewriting, we've already done. A lot of that work has been done. Mhmm. We were gonna talk about that today because we're kinda giving a broad baseline, and we'll discuss that at the public hearing. But the plan is to come back to you with a public hearing now in four weeks. So March 3 was the plan right now to come back to you with a public hearing for this, BLA discussion.

Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Oh, commissioner Meisenberg, please.

With that being said, during the hearing, is there any way possible that you can, provide an outline of what that checklist would look like for the BLA process so we can see it?

I think we can rough out something recognizing that it should completely be considered draft. But yeah, I think we can do that.

Thank you.

Alright. Wonderful. Oh, go ahead.

Would we know a sense of the cost? Permit fees and

Yeah. Application fees. That's yes. Our recommendation is that we charge an hourly rate because we don't know what this really is gonna take for time for us to review. Once we have data over three, two, three, four years, we will then transition to a flat rate like we do with all permits once we have the data.

Our currently hourly rate is a $145. And our proposal is that we cap that at four hours. So even if it takes us twenty hours to review, we're not gonna charge the applicant more than a four hour fee until we kinda have a better baseline. So at least the applicant knows that worst case, it would cost them $580 to have DCG review the permit. And then but if it takes less time, if we get it and it's simple, it's clear, and it takes us an hour, we'll reduce that fee and we'll refund that back to a $145 or whatever that would be.

So $5.80 is what we're going in. Clearly that has to get board approval and board discussion following your discussion and your recommendations but that is currently where we're lying as far as our recommendation.

Commissioner Meisenberg. So there was a recommendation at our last meeting that the public can entertain the idea of doing a pre application to get confirmation of the issues that are on the site prior to them finalizing the survey that would be required to come in. So is the pre application, would that be an additional cost to the applicant as well?

What we are looking at at this time is more of an informal pre application, not the type of pre application that's set out in code with every requirement that you have to do and the fee associated with that. We're suggesting that an applicant may want to come in for an hourly rate meeting. That's also something that's well established for anyone who wants to come in and discuss a potential project in more detail. And so when you come in to talk, we will ask you to say, you know, where is your property? You know, how are you trying to move your lines around?

Information that we can get from you in advance. The better the information you can give to us, the better information we can give to you. So one of the things that I would expect that staff would do to prepare for a meeting like that would be to to pull up your parcel numbers and do research on previous BLAs and the potential presence of critical areas, and to inform an applicant, look. On on our GIS parcel viewer system, it appears you have a stream running through your property. You're gonna wanna consider that when deciding how to to subdivide your property.

We're not gonna tell them how to do it. We don't provide that type of advice saying your your line should go here or there. But that information, we would consider important background information for them to take to their surveyor when they are drawing up the final documents for an application.

And I'll just add that at those hourly rate meetings, if they want somebody from DE there, development engineering, to talk about drainage concerns, they can ask for that. If they want somebody from building and fire safety to talk about fire access, they can ask for that person to be there as well. So it's really as big or as small as you want it to be in terms of concept or actual development ideas that you want to kind of put to paper.

Not as formal as those, but we do also have in person and virtual options for fifteen minute meetings with a planner. So planner of the day, virtual planner of the day, we can accomplish a lot in fifteen minutes. We can look at parcel search, we can pull up parcel details, see if there's a plot, see if there's critical areas. And within about fifteen minutes, we can have a pretty good understanding of the dynamics on a parcel. So it may not even need the consults.

It may not even need the bigger meetings. It really is coming down to like it's a communication between us and somebody before they go and record something with the auditor. But then this, of course, is memorializing that in the process that we would look at.

And that fifteen minutes is free? Yes. So we would do that free. And I would always suggest first coming in for the free meeting. If we realize it's a what you're asking is very complicated, that's when we would suggest then transitioning to potentially a paid meeting. But there's no reason not to come in for the fifteen minute free meeting first to figure out if we can solve it through that process.

I agree. And I think that thinking about the taxpayer, the applicant, having that information upfront before paying for a surveyor, getting that all prepared, spending that money coming in and then being told, well, there's a critical area here. There's setbacks here. It just seems like that would be the first initial step for anybody coming in to get that look see first before they even invest it in having that survey drawn up and submitted for the BLA. That's all.

We we get about three to six of those per week in our interactions at our front counter. So it is being used right now more heavily than it was in the past, think, because of this process. So it does help, though.

And I'll just add that we're a resource. And so we pass on the resources that we have available to us to the consumer, the person that comes in. So now they know where they can go to look at maps for critical areas. Parcel search, maybe they were never aware of parcel search and what that offers. So our goal is to have people become as informed as they can in fifteen minutes.

All right. Any further questions or comments from my commissioners? No? All righty. Thank you so much, DCD. We really do appreciate your time and that takes us through this in your presentation this evening. Thank you so much. Alrighty. Moving on, we're moving to the second and final general public comment period. Again, as a reminder, today's topics are a briefing and a work study only instead of public hearings.

Please note that any comments that you make tonight will not be added to the official record. The public process will begin for these projects once the draft code is published. Do we have anyone in the room that is wishing to speak? Ma'am, please come up. Just a quick reminder. If, those that are wishing to speak, if you would just state your name and your just general area, but what part of Kitsap, that would be wonderful. Thank you.

Okay. My name is Dawn Oyen, and I am in Port Orchard. I'm here tonight to speak about the complaint data being used in the equestrian facilities discussion and about the transparency that was promised by the county back in October, but has not been consistently delivered. In October, we are told this process would be transparent, collaborative, and data driven. The commitment to transparency is why many of us stay engaged in good faith.

But the record shows, a disconnect between what was promised and what has actually occurred. When the complaint file that we just got was examined carefully, it tells a very different story than what was implied. Across more than a decade, the county's own data shows that most equestrian and livestock properties generate one or two complaint entries in a single year, often tied to a single site review or administrative follow-up. The overall volume is driven almost entirely by a very small number of extreme outliers where hundreds of internal log entries were created during one extended enforcement episode. Those entries are not hundreds of neighbors.

They're not hundreds of violations, and they're not hundreds of incidents. This there are staff notes, inspections, and follow ups tied to one case. Yet those outliers are being allowed to shape the narrative for every equestrian property in the county. At the same time, the transparency we were promised has not been followed through. We were told that meeting notes would be shared, you know, and then we were also given complaint data the night before our working group meetings with no meaningful opportunity to review with suggesting that the survey questions were sent out late Friday evening, making responses that were not provided until on Monday.

So Dawn,

I apologize. Your two minutes has passed.

For your time. I appreciate it.

Thank you for your comment, Dawn. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience that would like to come up? Ma'am, please come forward.

There we go. Hi. My name is Jessie Olsen. I'm also on the Small Equestrian Working Group. And to comment on Don's, motions, I have my own paperwork. The night before the January 21 when the small working group was meeting, they gave us 1,999 complaints to go through with less than twenty four hours. So and they were agricultural. They were not all equestrian. Thankfully, several people, including myself, decided to take the time and go through that data. There ended up being a 119 complaints total about equestrian centers, so that was less than 6% of the overall and these were from 2,012 to 2,025.

So after that, I looked at how many were outliers, how many were continual, and how many were over the same. There were nine specific equestrian centres in that timeframe. So in that thirteen years roughly, there was less than 2% towards equestrian complaints. Of those, of the nine facilities that were complained about, five no longer exist. And many of those were done.

There were 13 complaints that actually had no adherence. Some of these complaints were actually, in my opinion, as wild as somebody said they were mad that a facility didn't have a cow and only had horses. So they were not, in my opinion, justifiable complaints towards an equestrian center. On top of that, because I know I have a short amount of time, I did want to comment on the survey. It was spoken about on the twenty first. We were told the following week we would have those questions sent to us as the small working group to help form them. They were not sent to us until this last Friday evening. So we commented over the last weekend, as of yesterday and this morning. We were told we would get a two point zero today. It never happened.

Actually, we were told we would get a two point zero yesterday. It didn't happen. It didn't happen today. And now they're saying they're publishing it tomorrow. So I am concerned about the transparency working with the small equestrian group. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you for your comment. Is there anyone else in the room? Ma'am, please come forward.

Hi. My name is Annie Braddock, and I'm here to I'm a member of the Western Union group. I work or I work. I live in North Kitsap in the Paulsbo area, and we did like my cohort said here, we did get our all of our information kind of on short notice to review. I wanna kind of present a very broad look at we all looked at it in a different way.

When I narrowed it down, I looked at it as how many instance like how many addresses were unique here to have complaints against them. So there were 40 unique addresses and two of those were duplicates, so that goes takes us down to 38. 17 of those dealt with one or more horses. Four out of those 17 appeared to be businesses. And of the other 17 that had horses in them, four of those had to deal with critical area complaints.

Five had to deal with manure. Two had to do with too many animals, but they also included chickens, pigs, and other things other types of animals. One had to do with horse density. One had to do with junk removal plus a horse. Another one had to do with setbacks that somebody wasn't happy about.

So I just wanted to say that that is where the data is kind of what we're looking at now. The county is still looking at it and doing an analysis as well. And preliminarily, this is kind of what we're starting to see, and it's really begging the question that I have, is all of this necessary. The other thing that I do have a concern of is there's a huge amount of distrust that was that came about because of this. And now seeing that this is kind of preliminarily what we're seeing, like, that's hard. A lot of us turned ourselves on our ears to try to help figure this out. So, anyways, thank you for your time, and thank you, DCD, for looking into this. I know it was not an easy thing to do. So thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Are there any other comments in the room? Either one of you gentlemen, please come forward.

My name is Eric Olson. I live down here in Port Orchard. And just listening to some of the things that have already come up here concerning what's going on with the equestrian code and all that, it's it's very, very alarming. The survey seems like a bad very bad idea just on its own principle. The DCD has been very upfront from the very beginning saying that they are complaint driven.

When they're putting out a survey like this, they're complaint fishing at this point. And I think that what they are planning on doing, at least what I heard somewhere around, I don't know, the grapevine, was that they were gonna be asking people who already put in complaints about things. So it's like they're going back to the same well again. It just seems like a very poorly thought out idea. It feels like they're trying to create more of an issue to justify a code change that doesn't need to happen at all.

It's now five, going on six months now, where we've been having to come down here about once or twice a month to hash this out. And there is nothing that is not covered already in existing Washington State law in Washington State policy, same with Kitsap law, code, and policy that cannot just be enforced to take care of the issue that originally had this start out. And quite frankly, the first blush of these policy changes that came about rather prominently showed that they were wanting to make conditional use permits a part of this. So it absolutely felt like to just common people, myself included, that this was a way for their the county, for the DCD, to get money, to get revenue from this. And we have a sizable equestrian community here, and it was a prime target for it.

And now there's been a lot of pushback on this. And even though the CUP has been taken off the the the board, it feels like right now at this time, it's just priming it to come back later on. It just needs to be done. It needs to be buried. We just got to put a stop to this. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments, sir.

Boundary line adjustments have been done forever.

Sir, would

you mind just stating your

name Thank and local area one more

you.

In 1977, I started converting lots on Alaska, California, and Nebraska streets. Do any of you know where Alaska All of you are on board? Do you know?

Sir, we can't a back

on board during public comment.

Just as Manchester. In 1895 to 1897, Libby and Bloomer Real Estate Company created lots as recreation lots for Seattle people. And they traveled by boats and they came to Manchester and Southworth area to to vacation. So in the nineteen late nineteen seventies, builders were looking for lots. We started converting those lots into usable lots.

They were 5,500 square feet as I remember, and we needed 7,500 square feet for septic tanks. There's no sewer. And then it changed to 9,600 and then it went to twelve five. So we converted those lots. I want you to drive out to Alaska or California Street and see what we did. It's not a ghetto. They ran sewer now. There's a lot more lots out there being developed, and that's what you get from boundary line adjustments, not this song and dance that the county's feeding you about, oh, there's gonna be a lot of trouble. We've been doing it forever, and we didn't need their help. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, sir. Is there anyone else in the room that would like to speak tonight? Seeing no one else in the room, we'll be going online, and I see mister Palmer. Mister Palmer, please go ahead.

William m Palmer for the record and also speaking as, the president of the Kitsap Alliance of Property Owners. I wanna emphasize something in the letter that you received either yesterday or today. I had eight points in my letter. I wanna focus on point number seven. Kitsap County has a habit of adopting regulations saying there's no financial impact when in fact there is.

And I'm requesting on behalf of the property owners that we be told what the cost of ordinance implementation will be. Now along with that should be a cost benefit analysis to say what we get for the money spent by the county, recognizing that there's also an amount of money that the property owner will spend to get higher surveyor and then pay recording fees. It seems like I even though there's been problems in the past, it doesn't seem like that they're predictive of problems in the future. And unless we know what the cost of ordinance implementation is, county shouldn't be adopting any new ordinance. And the county's already budget stretched due to lack of revenues, and it should be really critical that they take this kind of take on this kind of an analysis.

I guess my time's up.

Thank you for your comment, mister Palmer. It looks like we also have miss Alpress. Ma'am, please go ahead.

Hi. I'm Cindy Alpress in Central Valley near Silverdale. I'm just listening to the discussion about boundary lane adjustments. It's it seems to me that there is just a lot of common sense lacking here. When you're looking at people looking to do a boundary line adjustment, if they're hiring a surveyor, isn't there a checklist or some sort of flag to show that this person that may end up with a nonbuildable lot should be informed?

Why are you reactive to this, and why isn't this something that's you could be more proactive on and look at at the, whoever is approving these boundary line adjustments, whether it's the auditor or DCD, this doesn't seem like a rocket science to me. So why would you approve a property or a brownie a boundary line adjustment for a lot that is not buildable? You're you're making this a lot more difficult than it needs to be. So, you owe it to the property owner to let them know that they may be end up with a lot that is unbuildable. You don't wait until after the fact and say, oh, by the way, you have an unbuildable lot.

I hope somebody could answer that question. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Seeing no more comments online, no more comments in the room, I will close the final general public comment period. We now move forward to the good of the order. Do any commissioners have any comments that they wish to share? Commissioner Nelson?

Go Seahawks.

Very important message. Absolutely. Any other commissioners have anything for good of the order? David? No? Alrighty. If there are no other items for tonight's meeting, I declare this meeting adjourned at 07:31PM. The next planning commission meeting is scheduled for February 17. Thank you everyone for being here this evening. We appreciate it.