Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the 01/20/2026 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 the 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, any behavior that may make it difficult for others to hear or follow the discussion.

Such behavior can also be 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. The first item on the agenda is going to be introductions, and I would like to start online. David?

David Fleet, North Kitsap.

Thank you. And I believe that is everyone that we have online. And so, commissioner Hampton?

Good evening. Adrian Hampton, Central Kitsap.

Kathy Meisenberg, North Kitsap.

Cain Fender, Central Kitsap.

Ashley Hall, South Kitsap.

Caleb Nelson, South Kitsap.

Danielle Douthat, South Kitsap.

Ryan Wixon, Central Kitsap.

I know historically we do like little tiny little intro for the new commissioner. Is that a yeah.

Yeah. Feel free to do that.

Ryan, do you wanna do, like, a little 30,000 foot intro? Sure. So my

name is Ryan Wixon. I'm from Central Kitsap. I've went to CK Schools my whole school career. Went to Olympic College for a brief time and graduated from Western Washington University. I work in Silverdale, and I live in Seabeck. And, gosh, it's hard on the spot. So but I'm happy to be here, and I'm excited to learn more.

Thank you so much, Ryan. We're happy to have you on the commission. Alright. So now we're gonna go over our meeting participation and hybrid protocol. Please silence all electronic devices during the meeting. If you are 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 for public comment. For our in person attendees, please raise your hand if you wish to speak. You'll be called upon.

Please approach the podium and speak clearly into the microphone. For our 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 and your microphone will be unmuted. For our call in attendees, please 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 will be connected. You may need to press 6 to unmute your line. Written testimonies and comments. Written comments may be submitted to staff or emailed to cjewelkidsap dot gov by 2PM on the day prior to the meeting. Please include the meeting date, your name and the agenda item or subject you are addressing. Submitted comments will be entered into the record at the appropriate time.

For all of our speakers, please state your name and the general area in which you live. Comments are normally limited to two minutes for general public comment. These time limits may be adjusted by the chair when appropriate. Okay. Next, we are going to move into the adoption of the agenda.

Do I hear a motion to adopt the agenda?

I make a motion to adopt the agenda as presented.

Do I hear a second? Second. Are there any corrections or additions to the agenda? Hearing none, all those in favor of approving the minute, the agenda as presented, please raise your hand. All opposed?

All were in favor? It's passing. Okay. Alright. Next we're moving on. Thank you everyone for having so much grace for me. Do I moving on to the adoption of the minutes. Do I hear a motion to adopt the meeting minutes from the 01/06/2026 meeting?

I move to adopt the 01/06/2026 meeting minutes. Second.

Wonderful. Are there any corrections or additions to the minutes? Alright. Hearing none, all in favor please raise your hand. Alright. The ayes have it. Thank you. And so that now brings us to our first general public comment period. Do we have anyone in the room wishing to speak? Seeing none.

Looking online. Do we have anyone online looking to speak? Also seeing none. That is going to I will if there are no additional speakers, I'll close the first general public comment period. And then next up, we have mister Jim Rogers, our long range planner, planning supervisor with the county, and he will be covering the Silverdale Center plan 80% draft work study. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Jim.

Good evening commissioners. My name is Jim Rogers, community planning supervisor. And I'd like to go over the give you a brief on where we stand on the Silverdale Center plan. Right now, we're at the 80% draft mark. Barely at 80%, I think.

As you've probably noticed, there's a lot of placeholders and some gaps in the plan itself. But we're at the kind of first overview point on this plan. And just wanted to show you where we are and give you a little update on where we're going. So we're going talk a little bit about the contents of the plan, take a look at the goals and policies and how the plan is organized overall. Look at some of the implementation priorities and how those are structured.

And then talk a little bit about next steps. Those being design standards, redevelopment code, framework. Went a little too far there. Can we go back a slide? It's not doesn't seem to be we go. There we go. There we go. Okay. We'll get this thing working. Also talk about developing a wayfinding framework and draft plan for public comment when it's ready to come out.

I guess I'm gonna have to get you to advance the slide for me. All right. So taking a look at the overall schedule for this project, we started out in the 2025, did some community visioning, and conducted a market study. And that market study was completed in June 2025 to help support this plan and also a application to the Puget Sound Regional Council for redesignation of the regional center regional center. Then in the summertime, we did some community workshops, did a lot of visioning with the community and with stakeholder groups.

We talked about many of the hot topics and updating the vision and talked about a lot of design concepts for Silverdale based on that renewed vision. We'll talk a little bit more about that vision in a minute. And then this past fall, we got to a point where we developed a draft plan. And that's what we have before you now. That came out in December. So we haven't gotten to the design guidelines yet. We put that off a little bit. We're starting that right now and should have that here in in about a month or so as a draft in front of you. But for right now, we're just looking at the draft plan. Like I said, it's very draft.

And then we're also looking at some implementation strategies. Part of that draft plan was to make sure we had it done in time for the Puget Sound Regional Council to redesignate Silverdale Center as a regional center. We wanted to make sure that we were in good position and that they understood that we were planning to meet PSRC's goals when it comes to densities for housing and for employment in the center. Also, other criteria that PSRC has for regional centers that we need to make sure that they understood that we're planning for future growth. And that this draft plan went a long way towards getting what I just learned last week.

We gained a PSRC, the recommendation is to conditionally conditionally redesignate the center as a regional center. There are a couple of conditions that we need to work through as we finish this plan, and then we should be good to go. So and then we'll have to show some progress by 2028. But completing this plan is a big part of it. And that market study that we completed last year was also another big step in that direction.

We've cleared that hurdle for the time being. And now we are on to looking at the draft plan. Like I said, we'll have some draft design guidelines for you here probably in the next month to six weeks. And we with hopes of wrapping this plan up by June. It won't go through the adoption process until the end of the year, unfortunately, Whenever we make changes to our comprehensive plan, we have to consider them all at the same time.

So we do have other initiatives working through the process. And so they won't be completed until the end of the year. So we'll have a completed plan in June or July year, but we won't have we won't be able to go through the adoption process until the end of the year so that they can all be considered together comprehensively. So whenever you update the comprehensive plan, you have to consider them all comprehensively together because they can affect one another. Next slide.

All right. So what's been updated from the previous plan? We have an expanded vision to incorporate key area concepts, largely in transportation and public space priorities. Integration of community and stakeholder feedback. Like I said, we went through a visioning exercise with the community and with stakeholders.

We did surveys, did a lot of work on visioning largely that the plan had not been re envisioned since 2006. And so a lot's happened, as you might imagine, in the last twenty years. So we wanted to make sure that the vision was current. And so then we are updating the goals and policies that are currently in the plan, highlighting some catalyst projects and highlighting some implementation priorities to kick off those catalyst projects. And then have a new look and feel.

So hopefully, this plan is not just a dry policy document. It intends to have a lot of vision and a lot of guidance to help reach that vision. And that's what builds on the goals and policies that are outlined in this plan. Next slide. So a little bit about the document organization.

We had a in the beginning, a plan snapshot. Basically, it's an executive summary. And then we have a background section that includes past efforts and visions and how those have changed over time. And then we get into the vision and concept section, where we have what the drivers of the plan, the concepts around future developments of like the Mall Creek area, Old Town, looking at public realm and transportation improvements, talk about transit oriented development, things like that. And then look at the urban design framework and other transportation improvement projects.

And then we have a process section, where it talks about the timeline of the process, talks a lot about the community engagement that we've already been through, and the community engagement that will continue to move forward. A little bit about Silverdale today, how we got where we are, some of the history of Silverdale and why it is what it is today. And then we jump into the goals and policy sections. And each goal and policy section has have different sections, one for urban design and community, one for connectivity and mobility, one for environment and climate, one for economic development, and one for housing. And each of those areas has a vision, implementation framework.

It has reasoning and the background behind these policies and strategies, and then the implementation strategies that are in the table in the back. So we've got short term, medium term, long term and ongoing implementation strategies in the last section. And then a yet to be developed glossary and appendices. Next slide. So looking at some of the vision and concept section, this is just a kind of a reminder of some of the things that are in the plan.

The overall vision remains largely unchanged from the 2006 vision, but we were able to confirm that and build on it. Some of the things that we found were people wanted a more walkable 20 fourseven community from what it

is

today, things like that. So we updated the vision based on input from the community and the stakeholder groups. And the updated plan focuses on adding detail to the vision statement through urban design and development framework. So a lot of the area concepts coordinating with transportation and public space improvements. Next page.

So the organization of the goals and policies. Like I said, there's the different topic areas. Each one has its own vision statement, its own goals, and then strategies and policies around achieving those goals. And then in the end, and then it also outlines a lot of the catalyst projects or actions that are hoping to be to accomplish that goal and some of the outcomes of it. So based on the plan update, the engagement process, goals and policies were revised as needed with new language added where appropriate and for key priority big actions identified as catalysts within each topic area.

Next slide. And then we have, several goal and policy updates. And in this example, it's kinda might be kinda hard to see, but the the difference in the black and red text, the black text are would be policies that are in the current plan, in in the comprehensive plan, Silverdale Center plan. And the red text would be updates. In this case, it's just an update of looks like the first policy there, the center policy.

But then as you go through the different policy sections, you'll see added or revised policies in this draft, some of the examples there. And then we get to the implementation priorities on the next slide. Like I said, these are short term policies. Many of them that are listed here are short term. We also have medium, long term and ongoing implementations.

Some of the short term are to update and adopt development and design standards and redevelopment code. And we'll be bringing some of those to you in the late winter and establish incentives to expedite development processing and defining residential target areas and implementing a twelve year multifamily tax exemption program. And so that's something that the state finally let let the county take advantage of. And so we're gonna look like we're gonna try to take advantage of that for Silverdale and offer that as an incentive to try to get some affordable housing built there. Also prioritize efforts to strengthen collaborations and partnerships to advance the vision and area concepts, business and property owners, anchor institutions like the hospital or the mall, regional agencies and community organizations.

Also, some implementation priorities are to explore funding for key transportation projects, additional funding and conduct a parking study to see if as much parking as we have is really needed or if maybe we can loosen some rules there to make development to pencil out a little bit better. Collaborate with Kitsap Transit on its circulator routes for the area, possibly develop a complete streets policy for the Silverdale Center and coordinate with parks and open space with storm water projects and create wayfinding for the center. I will note that on the complete streets policy, Kitsap County doesn't have an official Complete Streets policy, but the projects, particularly the ones that are the new bigger projects in Silverdale, they do supply a complete street. There are different levels of complete streets depending on the stress. More One of recent terms is low stress when it comes to pedestrians.

So bicycles that have buffers between traffic and things like that create lower stress. But the elements are all still there.

You

have sidewalks, you have bike lanes, you have other pedestrian amenities of a complete street system. So we just simply don't have a policy that defines what level of complete streets we need to develop to. So that's something we want to take a look at. And also, I want to coordinate with our public spaces with stormwater. There are some stormwater parks being developed, and they are going to be public amenities that can be used for public space, too.

So not just storm water facilities, but coordinating those. And then on next steps, on the next page, we update the Silverdale Regional Center design standards where appropriate. We're simplifying those requirements, including consolidated design districts. We currently have nine design districts in Silverdale. And for consistency purposes and to make it a little easier for developers, we're going to try to consolidate that down to three or maybe four design districts.

And we want to add some detail and specificity where we can to make sure that the current vision for the area and the area the new concepts for the area are reflected in those design standards. So one of the things we're thinking about for those design standards is to be have it more of a of a menu option available. So for example, if a developer needed to provide pedestrian amenities on their frontage, Maybe they have instead of saying you should do this, this and this, maybe instead we say, you know, here are a list of 12 things that you can choose three from. Choose three of the following 12 to to get your project approved for design. And so we're we're hoping that something like that might provide more flexibility for the developer to better shape their project to to their vision.

And then we want to outline a redevelopment code framework to address the challenges faced by constrained sites that may not meet development requirements. Again, to create some wayfinding framework for the center. And then after we get comments back from the stakeholder or from I'm sorry, from our internal review team, and you are part of that internal review team now. So when we get all the comments back from you, and we're going to take this to the Board as well next week, We hope to update this draft to about the 85 level and then send it out to all the stakeholders that will help put this plan together and give them a chance to review it. Then we'll take that stakeholder review, bring it back and update the plan again, maybe get it to the 95% stage, and then take that plan public and get additional comments from the general public on it.

And then finally, in the end, after we have a plan that's ready to go, we'll bring it back to the Planning Commission and to the Board of County Commissioners for adoption at the end of the year. So hopefully, you've had a chance to look at the plan. And hopefully, you have some comments for us tonight. Again, we're it's very draft, so we're looking mostly at the structure and some of the content, of course, but mostly the structure and the layout, the look and feel of the plan, whether or not there are any big gaps for you. Some of the things that we've noted so far from our IRT comments are that the some of the big projects, particularly transportation, storm water, that type of thing, they aren't as well coordinated with.

They should they should be better coordinated with. Public Works has done a great job of providing good products there in Silverdale over the years, and we need to be building on that. And we can do a better job of pointing out some of the good work that they've done there and are continuing to do as those projects develop. So and then also help defining some implementation priorities ensuring alignment with county goals, highlighting areas of the draft plan that could be clearer if something is confusing, and identify key elements that may be missing, such as important ongoing initiatives or considerations that we have not accounted for. So that's it.

We would love to take any comments that you have or provide discussion. Also have Anthony Burgess here in the in the audience with us, and he's from Public Works. You may know him already. If you don't, you will soon. And he may be able to shed some light on any of the transportation or other Public Works projects if you have specific questions on those.

Thank you so much, Jim. Do any of our commissioners have any questions or comments regarding the Sobrino Center plan for Jim?

And if you don't have any comments now, that's okay. We still have a few weeks of being able to collect comments from you and the board before we make some updates to send it to the stakeholders group.

Yeah. Absolutely. Please.

Hi, Jim. Thank you for the presentation. It was great. I just have a question. Does the county have a design review board at all?

No. I don't believe so.

DRB? No. Designer? Do not. Okay. And so who would be looking at the the design of the overall project as far as, like, the elevation, like, style of buildings and whatnot. How I know that you had mentioned that the developer would have some freedom to kind of design things themselves, but for the unification of all of those buildings and structures is who would be reviewing all of those?

Well, we have design standards now. And we would just be consolidating those from, like I said, from nine districts down to three or four. And then, hopefully providing some clarity and, you know, taking out any overlapping things between them. But we do have a design engineer on board for this plan, and, they're are professionals that can make suggestions. We'll bring those suggestions to you and get further comments from other design groups in the area, design engineers.

But as far as the design review board, no, we don't have that. We have planners that review projects based on the design standards that are in place.

And just one more question. I'm assuming that this project as a whole would be phased?

The design standard phase?

Just the overall, the whole project itself. Would it be phased? Like, are you gonna focus on the transportation network first? And then or is it just everything all at one time?

No. It's I think it's a little bit of everything all at

once. Okay.

Yeah. So we're we're setting the stage for a twenty year plan. Twenty. So we we have some, like you said, we have some short term strategies that might be in the five or six year range or even less. And then midterm might be ten year and then long term, you know, beyond that.

And then several of them on there are indicated as ongoing. So those are projects like, you know, looking at different ways to help development pencil out better, you know, looking at incentives, things like that, looking at ways we can simplify our code to make it work better. Just there's always ongoing things, but we've tried to just single out some of the short term stuff specifically to in each category. So for each section, whether it's design, transportation, environment, we've tried to select some short term stuff for each one of those moving forward. So there's implementation strategies for all sections at the same time.

Thank you. You have to start somewhere, right?

We have to start somewhere. That's right. Yeah. Thanks. Yep. And these plans, they evolve over time, you know, and they get redeveloped over time. But this is this is going to be a really good start with a new vision and some new goals and policies and design guidelines that will hopefully move us in the right direction, some new incentives to get some of that affordable housing built and to build housing in general. Silverdale Center does not have hardly anyone living there. It's a twelve hour community, not a twenty four hour community. People come there to shop and then they

Thank you so much for the presentation. And it was really great to also be a part of this process, mainly through my day job and then also wearing planning commissioner hat on. So thanks for that involvement in involving a lot of voices in the process. I feel as though they're very well reflected in this plan, which is, you know, what what we wanna see. The plan overall, I I find it easy to follow.

I love all the visuals and the photos and, like, just the potential of possibilities. So I I think the layout is, you know, very well done. I had a just a few comments about just things in the plan itself just to answer some maybe some of your questions of what you're hoping to hear from us. So first and foremost, I just think it's so great to see, like, themes around, like, health care being promoted, even things like senior housing, addressing homelessness, storm water infrastructure. So, really, I think what's so important about a plan like this is it's trying to meet the needs of today, but also trying to anticipate and predict, right, what we're gonna need in the future.

So, yeah, very well done there. My to answer the question around, like, gaps, things I would love to see that I I I heard but don't necessarily see reflected in the plan, and this can maybe go in, like, community priorities on was it page 18 or, like, sprinkled throughout? One of the big ones was involving youth. And so really thinking about youth accessibility, so thinking about CK is right there, the library, the YMCA. There's a lot of young folks, right, are in the Silverdale community.

And so what does it look like to I think it's captured through, like, accessibility and walkability, but I think to just address and call out and speak to youth would be very powerful. In addition, in the community priority section, perhaps, like, understated, but just a bullet point around maintaining access to services, especially, like, basic needs. We think about access to, like, healthy foods, right, community spaces, even the severe weather shelter, so, like, critical critical services that are provided there. Just having that in place, I think, just is something that we know we wanna preserve for the long term. It's kind of obvious, like, yeah, you go grocery shopping in Silverdale, but that's actually a really great resource that we can all go grocery shopping in Silverdale.

So we wanna keep it that way. And then I would love to see language around it it speaks to climate mitigation, but I think to heat specifically, just making sure that we can avoid that heat island effect. And, you know, just as we continue to think about growing and expanding that we're doing that in a mindful way, that's not also gonna be promoting, you know, the kind of urban island effect as they call it. And then another point around climate is that I really enjoy the implementation section and that there's clear policy intent. As it relates to air quality, I feel like some clarity there on page 83 could be helpful just because I'm not sure when we're talking about increasing air quality, what what what sources are we actually talking about?

Are we talking like mobile, you know, stationary sources? So that could maybe help clarify policy intent.

Okay.

Yeah. And then my last comment was just and this is maybe more of a question. Would love to hear everyone's thoughts. The in the plan, there is heavy emphasis around, like, the urban framework, and I I totally get it. And at the same time, I think, you know, last year, we learned so much engaging with the year the rule project.

And so it's like, how do you maintain, right, that character of our community while we're also trying to, like, meet the needs and the growth? And so I think an a nod to I don't I don't know how we balance that, but maybe if there's a way to put a little less emphasis on, like, the urban urban retail kind of components and figure out a way that we can counterbalance that with, you know, the heart of Kitsap. So that was just something I was thinking about, but I don't necessarily have a solution to.

Thank you. One of the things that we are trying to build on, and it may not be reflected well in this plan just yet, is the idea of different community identities, whether it's the hospital community or the mall community or or old town has its kind of identity. But other places don't really have an identity or or I don't know how to structure that or say that exactly, but it doesn't have some place that you would just readily identify as a community place, community space. And so a lot of these design concepts, particularly around mall and the Clear Creek area and even Old Town are are the concept is to make more community spaces where they are identical and have identified and by the community and people can connect to. So, yeah, we're trying to build on that.

Yep. And because it there really really isn't a a definable community identity, really, in Silverdale other than Old Town. So Thank you. Good comments.

Alright. We have the commissioner of lead online. David, please go ahead.

Yes. Thank you very much for that presentation. It's excellent. A few kind of things that I'd like to see added potentially are for for instance on page 84, there's a SRP 9.6, and it's talking about a tree retention and keep retaining trees, planting new trees. What I'd like to be added to that potentially more specifically would be to maybe if we're planting trees, there are some trees that are native that are are probably not gonna work very well like the Doug firs and the western red cedars, but I'd like us to try to where we can do native plantings of native trees.

So we're finding that habitat even in the somewhat urban area for all the creatures that rely upon it. And one in particular that I think would be really good for an urban setting that's really fun is something called a Gary Oak or Oregon White Oak. It's the only native oak to Washington State, and it's acorns. It's it's it's kind of a super super tree. So and it's supposed to be very drought tolerant, so I think it would kind of fit in well with the heat island effect that's probably gonna come with the area as much as we wanna try to reduce it.

But to commissioner Hampton's point, I would like to see that kinda reduced. And, also, with regards to the heat item effect, sometimes in these centers, I feel like there's I feel like concrete and pervious impervious surfaces seem to be kind of overplayed and overused. So I'd like to see try to minimize that amount and maybe a a little bit more areas for, you know, rain gardens or trees or plants for to kind of give people who live in that area stress relief and just have a place for, you know, the birds and other creatures to go, the smaller ones. And lastly, there's gonna be a lot of people moving to the area, hopefully, getting a lot of new residents there. One thing that Kitsap County doesn't really have is, like, a year round farmer's market.

And so maybe that would be a good opportunity since that's where a lot of the people are gonna be instead of having them go to farmers markets outside of the area, and Silverdale does have a small one, but would be to kind of create some kind of cool vibrant year round farmers market, you know, that has other kinds of vendors. Thanks for your time.

Yeah. Thank you for those comments. I appreciate it. So, yeah, one of the goals in the plan is to slowly add more trees as we redevelopment redevelop some of the asphalt areas. We have tons and tons of parking that's not used in Silverdale. It's way over parked at the moment. And some of these design concepts would add green spaces as they redevelop. So with any luck, we'll be able to make some progress on adding some more tree canopy to Silverdale

over Yeah, native tree canopy would be great.

Native tree.

Ryan, please.

First, I'd like to thank you, Jim. I know that you've put a lot of effort into this. Some of you may not know that Jim's presented at the Central Concept Community Council. How many times in our workshop did we meet? Was it four times? Three or four times?

And we'll be back again soon.

Yeah. There's a lot of effort to get to the 85% mark, and I wanna thank you for that. I I did have one question on some of the growth targets that we talked about the other day. In my orientation meeting, the Puget Sound Regional Council has they're called activity

Activity units.

So that target's moving up as we progress over the next twenty years. Some of our densities have changed in the urban growth area. Is that correct? They've gone up from, like, 10 to 30 to 30 to 40 somethings.

You're talking about over time, how they're supposed to increase?

No. Just haven't recently haven't they haven't some of the densities changed in our urban growth area in the regional

Oh, allowed densities. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. For example, in Silverdale, we removed density caps altogether in the regional center. So there's no longer a density cap there. You can put in as many units as you can under the height limit.

Have any of the densities on the minimums been increased as well?

I don't believe so.

Okay. That was that was just one concern I had is if we've raised the densities too high and they don't come, I was wondering if we could have a safety valve to at some point, if the development doesn't come to to lower the threshold for new development. But if that's not a concern on the I thought there were some increased minimum densities, but I'll take a look at that.

Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.

Any other commissioners?

I notice what in June, there was a representative from the Kitsap Mall, correct, invited to the workshop? Seeing as, obviously, the mall and then a couple other large retail hubs, Costco and some of those other surrounding units are a substantial portion of that hardscape in area that could be redeveloped or shifted. Sure. Just curious what kind of input or feedback have you gotten from those private property owners as far as alignment with the plan or what

their thoughts We've been mostly trying to work with the mall on that because they're, like, one of the the biggest players in Silverdale aside from the hospital district and others. But we're the mall management is completely on board, and they have been at all of the stakeholder meetings. And they've been really receptive to some of these design concepts. And we ran these design concepts through them before we publish them. So and we're also working with the mall management to work with the owner to make sure that everything jives with their future plan.

One thing management there realizes is that the current mall structure and business model isn't going to work in the future. So they're recognizing that they need to change. And some of the and these concepts that we're putting out there are some of those changes that they they believe they need as well. So it's not just us wishing upon them. They're also looking to do that kind of thing in the future.

Don't know exactly when. I don't know their plans yet for the future. Hoping to meet with the mall owner as well as management again, hopefully in the next week or so, and discuss some of those future plans that they may have. And and because we wanna make sure this plan aligns with with them and that they understand what the community really wants and needs because they need that in order to provide services that the community wants. So it's kind of a it's a two way

thing. Yeah. Definitely. Dealing with private property owners themselves is probably the challenge

It is.

In and of itself?

Yeah. Yeah. We're just we're just really happy that mall management is is has been so so active in the stakeholder group and is greatly excited about some of these concepts.

The to me also the concept of infill for Old Town, has that been thought about also for some of these other areas?

It it yes. Yeah. So a little bit of infill for for Old Town, not going up to extreme heights or anything, but keeping it at what what three or four stories, I think, like that, something like that. But, yeah, infill everywhere. You know, there's there's a lot of single story strip mall type development that's getting pretty aged out in Silverdale. And so they have opportunities to redevelop. And one thing we're really looking closely at is redevelopment code. So properties that are already developed, how can we make it easier for them to redevelop? They're not starting from scratch. They've already got something on the ground.

How can we make it easier for them to develop to Silverdale's vision, make a pencil out? Yeah. So we're we're looking at some of that redevelopment code. That that's yet to come. Probably about the same time as we'll have some design guidelines for you to review.

So with that, I guess, will that redevelopment is there a thought that that will be in the 100% draft of this? Will that be separate? Or

It'll it'll be as it'll it'll be separate. Some of the concepts will be in the plan probably

Okay.

But not the full blown code or anything like that. So that'll be a separate that will be one of the things that we develop after this plan is developed. So it will be a follow on to develop that code.

Perfect. Thank you.

Yes.

Please.

Hi, Jim. Thanks again. I have a question about this in the context of the comp plan on the broader time horizon. So this is a twenty year plan. The comp plan is kind of a ten year increment, right? So this is two cycles?

No. The comp plan is actually a twenty year plan. It's the future date on the 2024 comp plan is 2044.

So

we did plan for twenty years. This plan is made to coincide with that with the same future growth goals as the comp plan.

Okay. So in the comp plan, as part of the remit from the PSRC, we're adjusting zoning to allow for certain amount of housing, certain number of jobs. And this how many pages is it? Comp plan or center plan at 80% is 104 pages. And I was looking through to see where it quantifies a before and after of at least those two components, maybe there are others that would fold in well in a representative image for housing, for jobs.

Is there something that quantifies those today versus twenty years hence with the zoning to show that combination.

Are you talking about a visual that shows what a full build out might look like?

Not a visual, quantifying it.

So what we did in the comprehensive plan is we plan for the entire county for a certain amount of growth in population and jobs. And that growth was allocated to the regional center and other UGA's and everywhere across the Kitsap County. And so that long range planning for the twenty year vision planned for this amount of growth and in housing and employment in these particular areas. So we didn't change that. We're just looking at how are we accommodating that in Silverdale.

We need to accommodate a certain amount of housing and a certain amount of jobs in Silverdale. And so we are looking at our land capacity analysis and looking at recent changes that we've done in zoning. Like I said, we lifted our density limits and we did a market study to help us look at what's feasible there to build now and in the future. And so those are the things that are going into developing this what's on the ground short term, mid term, to try to get this vision realized in the future. So we're planning with the same goals we did in the comp plan for the employment population goals.

So that didn't change. So it relates right back to the comp plan, which is that twenty year plan.

So I guess my question is, I appreciate that. As we're proposing to reduce the number of zones in the Silverdale District, right, from nine to three or four

Design districts.

Design districts. Not zones. Not

zoning like commercial or residential zones. No.

Okay. So did but we're relying heavily on Silverdale, Kingston as density centers to fill the remit for the twenty year update in housing and jobs and such?

Correct.

How much of that twenty year plan for housing for jobs is reliant on the zoning that we did change in Silverdale specifically. Do you know? Is it half? Is it do you have an order of No,

I'm afraid I don't. We made quite a few changes in Silverdale to the zoning to allow for more housing and more employment growth. We also made changes in Kingston and other UGA's. We didn't quite get there. The reason we didn't quite get there is because in past comprehensive plans, we've always planned for population. Well, this time around, the state required us to plan for housing. And if you back out of housing and people per household, it required us to plan for a lot more population than than we we were we were not gonna have the population to fill the houses.

Kind of a circular iteration.

It is. It's a back and forth argument with no stop. But so this was kind of a change for us. And the decision was made early on that we would kind of split the difference in planning for more people than we were supposed to plan for, but not quite meeting the housing planning requirement. So we kind of split it. Growth Management hearings board didn't like that. And so we got remanded. This wasn't them that didn't like it, but they remanded us on a we got challenged on our comp plan. And the growth board said go back to the drawing board, find places where you can accommodate the additional housing, even if you're not planning for the people to go into that housing. We have to plan for it.

So that's where we are today is looking at our zoning and different things like how much property we take away for right of way, different market factors, things like that. Looking at our calculations to see where we might find a few 100 more houses or a thousand houses here or, you know, a few 100 there. So very soon, we will have that plan to meet that growth management remand. We'll be bringing that forward.

I would think it'd be useful to quantify what the anticipated change is in the Silverdale sub area plan given that we're relying on that so heavily, that in Kingston, for Kitsap overall, meaning their remit. And then how these districts with incentives and such, whether it's the MFTE or other density allowances helps meet that. And I'm thinking specifically of there's a map on in this 104 page document on page 21 that shows I'm just gonna jump to it on my own screen. The I think it was 23. The color coding of uses, so it's not zones or districts, but I think generalized uses and shows the heavy retail shopping core as obviously Kitsap Mall, also further east north of Ridgetop Boulevard where Costco and Best Buy and such are heavily retail.

And then it's got a box that says these are redevelopment opportunities. And I would characterize those two as very different levels of complexity. And so that's useful to know only in terms of assessing likelihood of redevelopment and contribution to the requirement for a certain amount of jobs and housing, right?

Right.

So Kitsap Mall specifically, and you'll hear this if you're talking with ownership. And just on that, not to confuse ownership with the on-site leasing agent who's been attending the central Kitsap Planning meetings. He's the leasing agent. He's focused on the existing structure. It has nothing to do with redevelopment. They tell him to do this and that's all he does. He's got part of redevelopment plans. And redevelopment, even if that were part of their MO, which it's not. I mean, they're not planning that here. They're not doing that in District Mile Hill and Port Orchard.

Even if that were, Kitsap Mall is heavily encumbered with covenants between all the different fragmented owners. So you've got Winco, which is not the mall. Shares a wall, but it's not the mall. Dick's Sporting Goods is not the mall. Barnes and Noble, Kohl's Furniture.

Those are all sharing walls but separate ownership, and they all have different covenants that allow different types of goods and services to be sold. And so my point being, they share walls that's heavily encumbered, it's fragmented ownership. Even if they did want to redevelop, it's highly problematic. Would probably be a couple of comp plan cycles. Maybe it's forty years before someone could practically do anything to redevelop, to include housing and things like that.

And so if we're relying going into the weeds a little bit on the Kitsap Mall as part of the broader achievement of housing and jobs, I think it should be viewed in that light. The other is probably easier. You've got distinct buildings. There are covenants probably that would still require working out what could be redeveloped. But that's far less complex. It's a little bit smaller footprint, but probably more likely on that kind of time horizon.

Yes, sure. When you're dealing with a single entity, it's a lot easier. With the Kitsap Mall. It seems like they it sounds like they need a comprehensive plan of their own envisioning process to, you know, see what they wanna do in the future. But, we are working with mall management as our liaison to the owner to see what their thoughts are on this going forward and what their future vision might be.

So yes, you have to start somewhere. And there are development agreements that we could possibly pursue with some of these developers or owners, whether it's some of the big box stores over by Costco or whether it's Kitsap Mall or St. Michael's Medical Center is also very, very much likes this planning effort. So they're on board with trying to make some of that housing happen for them. And, I understand the complexities.

It's nothing it's it's not gonna be easy. I know that malls are set up like this across the nation. Yeah. But some of them do it. Some of them redevelop, a lot of them or they fail. So I'm sure they're asking themselves what do they want to be in the future. So we'd like to be a part of that conversation.

If I can, one last. On the zoning then, will there you say that's an assessment done after this process?

This regional center is already up zoned about as far as it can go.

Okay. So the redistricting then is an overlay on top of

the Yes. It's just guiding the design of new structures.

And so that's

the look and feel that the community would like.

Do the maps that we have in this 104 page document show it? That the type of display? Or is there another display overlay that we would anticipate after this process?

There are some design concepts in here throughout. You'll notice some of the community design sections, but nothing real defined. And I think we'll get into that definition with the design standards and be a little bit more clear. And we'll have the design standards will be much more graphically, hopefully, presented graphically rather than just with a bunch of words.

Yes. And just on the point of design standards, I think it's going forward beneficial to have the standards. And like you said, the professional on board who reviews for compliance, just as a cautionary note, Seattle had a design review board decided recently that it was so cumbersome and so prohibitive of new development and costly, unpredictable. You'd go through two, three, even four presentations to a design review board. They did away with it altogether. And so it's useful I think to observe that like you said, just have somebody on staff who looks for compliance.

Yes. And we don't have a design board right now, and we weren't thinking along those lines. We just have planners that review developments as they come in, and they review them against the design standards and work with the developers to make sure that they meet them.

Thanks very much.

Yeah.

Commissioner Hampton?

I just have one last quick comment. I was curious in the plan if language around accessible streetscapes could be emphasized. So essentially, just thinking about the ways that the plan could just emphasize how it will meet multiple mobility or diverse mobility needs, maybe is the best way to say it, And even like a blurb around like ADA compliance and that kind

of thing.

It it does a great job of highlighting mobility, being maybe more specific. Is that something that's possible?

Well, the county already meets ADA requirements for all new projects. And so that's already built into current policy and standards for road standards and road design. We can certainly make sure that that's highlighted in this plan, but it wouldn't be anything new. It would just be a reiteration of what county already practices.

That's great. We don't want anyone thinking that's missing.

No, it's not missing. And like I said, is one sub element of the overall county wide comprehensive plan. So those overarching policies like ADA standards apply to everything in the comp plan. And this is no exception.

All right. Any other comments or questions for mister Jim Rogers from the commission? All right. Thank you so much, Jim. We really do appreciate your time.

And like I said, if you want to send me some more comments via email or something like that over the next week or two, would really appreciate it.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Alright. The next item on our agenda is the Planning Commission Improvement Survey results in the twenty twenty six recommendations briefing presented by Cecilia Olson, our assistant director, and Heather Cleveland, long range planner.

Thank you, everyone. Just give us a moment to set up.

Good evening, planning commissioners. My name is Cecilia Olson. I'm an assistant director with DCD. I'm here with Heather Cleveland, one of our planners. And tonight, what we're sharing with you is a little bit different than what we normally bring, and that it's not a change to development regulations.

It's not part of the comp plan amendment, and it's not something we're asking for a decision on. What it is, is a process improvement initiative that was brought forth by Heather towards the end of last year. And Heather's gonna go into a little bit more detail about this in just a moment, but what we did was some targeted surveys in an effort to identify patterns, some of our strengths and some of our weaknesses or gaps in our processes. Acknowledging that DCD has gone through a lot of change over the years, and as we continue to evolve, we and I think I can speak for both of us here. We wanted to reflect and really be honest with ourselves in how our planning processes are working or maybe not working for you as decision makers and for our staff that do work.

So tonight, we're gonna share kind of a high level of our findings. And again, it's this is an informal presentation. It's not subject to public comment. It's not something you have to take action on. So we really do invite you to be part of the conversation. And if you have questions or thoughts or ideas, you're welcome to jump in at any time. So with that, I'll turn it over to Heather.

Thank you, Cecilia. Thank you, commissioners for having us here tonight. And yes, this is Department of Community Development's Planning Commission Research and Improvement Plan with our twenty twenty six recommendations. And my name is Heather Cleveland. I'm a long range planner with Department of Community Development.

So the items that we'll cover tonight in our presentation, the opportunity, so kind of what brought this about, the staff and planning commission assessment, peer research that was done, our recommendations, and kind of more specifics on our next steps. So a former planning commissioner often like to ask us, which I fully appreciate this question, is what is the problem that we're trying to solve? As Cecilia mentioned, we've had high turnover. And so with that, what are the structures in place? You know, we felt that a bit shaky last year with so many new folks in all areas of of that are involved with the planning commission and public process, so new staff and commissioners.

We saw opportunities for role clarity and consistency. And again, like, it wasn't just with one group we saw, you know, how can we help this in all the areas. You know, not just it wasn't just one presentation. It was kinda over and over, like, hey, there's an opportunity here for this. We felt that as staff, you know, we felt we heard it from the public. So all around saw opportunities, presentation, content, guidance. So again, we had a new planning commission clerk. We had new staff. We had multiple departments presenting to the planning commission. I can say probably almost everyone having it for the first time.

So, yeah, a lot of looking for, you know, more consistency on that. Meeting flow and chair leadership was something. How can we help with that? How can we, yeah, identify where are those educational opportunities for the consistency, again, the sake of the Planning Commission, also for the public, also for the staff? And then finally for the public process, communicating that, making that a good experience for all of those that are involved.

So all of that, you know, the observations and experiences of 2025 led us to what we call in DCD and at Kitsap County, just do it. So it's a process improvement culture that we have at Kitsap County that I fully appreciate. Staff are encouraged to identify opportunities. And I've gone through training through Lean Six Sigma, what's known as Yellow Belt. And we also have the opportunity to advance further to Green Belt and go further on further than that.

So with that, I took the opportunity with respect to Planning Commission to do a Just Do It. And that means, you know, let's just do it. So I presented that to the DCD leadership, the plan, and they I got the thumbs up to move forward and that's also gathered partnerships along the way in our planning commission clerk and then also our assistant director Cecilia with, you know, conversations and buy ins from others along the way. So we are just doing it. So with that, I presented, you know, the goal of the planning commission that, you know, what do we want this to look like?

We want this to be accessible, a smooth process. So we established the goal, and then under that, some objectives and key steps to this process was feedback collection. We had a sense and some things were already happening, but we really wanted to take that opportunity. Are we all on the same page? Are we all seeing the same things?

Learn from best practices so that pure research was a part of this plan to begin with. And then turning those insights into practical recommendations. Again, a lot of these things were kind of already in motion, but we did want to formalize them and kind of help and also help prioritize them while also learning from other jurisdictions. Gather input and support from leadership. So after the first round, the first iteration of gathering that feedback, we shared back with leadership to get buy in and feedback from them, and then wove that into the recommendations.

And then we're putting these improvements into action. So the first step was staff and planning commission assessment. So thank you to all of those from the planning commission who participated. We had six of nine at the time last year commissioners participate. Really appreciated that.

And so not only did we all of the surveys had a similar tone, but were targeted to specific audiences. So we had planning clerk staff. They have a different role, you know, than the planning staff or the planning commissioners. We also surveyed the different department's planning staff, which was, you know, interesting to get the different feedback. For example, of course, community development, we're here we're pretty frequent flyers here, but parks and public works, not so much.

So when we're trying to explain our process or standards to somebody who do not use it on a regular basis, or who also have perhaps worked in other jurisdictions to get their feedback, it was very helpful. And then finally, of course, the Planning Commissioners got y'all's feedback. We divided the surveys up into two types of questions. The first was benchmark questions, and that was so that we can come back at the end of this year and say, are we moving the needle on some of this that we hope to improve? We included five point scales, for example, effectiveness, clarity, and sufficient.

And then topics were similar, but in and around leadership support, coordination and communication, process clarity, materials and information, and then meeting procedures. Essential the basics. And then we open it up to the action questions for staff and commissioners. So process understanding, leadership support, chair coordination, training resources, presentations, training and support, and improvement suggestions were all yeah, it's something that all of us play a role in and that we received it was more open ended. So what are the opportunities?

And then on the flip side we asked, what are your suggestions, you know, to help us make it better? So here is a high level overview of the benchmark survey. Again, we'll I think it'll be easier to see this compared, you know, 2025 to 2026. But from planning clerk staff and planning staff, There are clear roles, leadership guidance and chair coordination, and then stronger, more consistent materials and resources. So these were the opportunities and also suggestions that we received, and it was fairly consistent theme wise across the board.

And then with respect to planning commissioners, agenda preparation and community are generally effective. So not everything, you know, there are some things that are, hey, is working really well. And then the second part was some response suggests room to improve coordination and information sharing. So we took, you know, there was six different responses, for example, with the Planning Commission. We've read all of them.

It's hard sometimes to put it all in one slide, but it was heard. And then you'll see those, hopefully some of the suggestions that you made represented in our recommendations. Then when it came to the action part of the survey with respect to improvements, we were able to break this down into four different categories. So clarity, defined roles, expectations, stronger onboarding. And this is not just for planning commissioners, this is also for staff. You know, coming on to when you come on as a planning staff, planning commission training is not necessarily part of your onboarding. So we're working to make that part of the onboarding. Consistency. So again, this is another example. Standardized workflows, agendas, templates, and timelines.

That will help staff, but it will also help planning commission with predictability and also perhaps even help the public understand where are we at in this process when it's a bit more standardized. Coordination, so clear communication protocols and routine check ins. So this is especially related to it's for everybody, when you're going through a long process. If it's six months or twelve months or even goes into beyond that, what are our check ins? And are we communicating and coordinating together where we're at in this process?

And then capacity and support. Targeted trainings and up to date reference materials. I think it was something that we all recognized. We want to create a culture where we're checking those resources that are pretty readily available from the state of Washington and others, that they're accessible to all of us, so we're all working from the same place. I'm going to turn it over to Cecilia to talk about peer research.

So we reached out to 30 other jurisdictions with go ahead, we can do next slide with 10 of the same questions related to onboarding and training, onboarding specifically for new planning commissioners and what training they do for planning commissioners. We also ask questions related to the frequency of their meetings and if they regularly hold special meetings, retreats, or workshops, what they have related to policies, rules of procedures, or bylaws, how they coordinate with, elected officials, the commission, and staff. And then, the there's also with that the like Heather mentioned, whether or not they have templated staff reports or documents for staff presentations and then additional coordination and communication questions as well as if more generally what their best practices are and if they had lessons learned that they would share with other jurisdictions. So of the 30 other jurisdictions that we reached out to, this is a list of those that actually provided responses to our questions. So, we got a fair mix of counties and cities.

Next slide. And from their responses, we found that planning commissioner onboarding is predominantly staff led and there is a mix of whether or not it's planning staff, planning management or administrative support staff. And interestingly enough, in some jurisdictions, have the chair and vice chair play a role in that onboarding. Topics for the initial orientation are commonly what the roles and responsibilities are, those rules of procedure bylaws, going over OPMA, ethics stuff like appearance of fairness doctrine. And then some actually do training of the comprehensive plan.

Other jurisdictions that have their planning commission actually make decisions on permits will go through training with their development regulations as well. And then for ongoing training, it's not very consistent. It's pretty informal for most jurisdictions. There's not a lot of structure, at least in the responses that I received from those jurisdictions. And some noted that it's more frequent during comp plan updates.

And we are right on the mark for the number of meetings that we have. I know that there was some concern last year about some meetings being canceled, which is actually common too when there's nothing to take forward, but most planning commissions do meet twice a month. The city of Seattle is very robust in the number of meetings that they have and that they have 70 per year. So that's quite a bit more. It's quite a commitment.

So workshops, retreats, and special sessions, about half of them do these. And we do have here at Kitsap, we do the annual joint meeting with the board, is common across jurisdictions. Those that do have special workshops, I really like Port Angeles. They did a three day workshop plus open houses for a campaign that they're doing for pursuing housing for all. The city of Seattle and city of Shoreline both reported that they do retreats.

With the City of Seattle, those retreats are Saturday meetings that are four or five hours long, and they have keynote speakers, representatives from other departments within the city. They do team building activities, and then there's coordination with another commission that they have called the Community Interest Commission. But the jurisdictions that do not hold special meetings or workshops, retreats, it's staffing limitations, budget constraints, stuff like that. They don't have the capacity to do them. Most jurisdictions do have bylaws or rules of procedure that are adopted via resolution.

We have a couple of examples linked in here of some planning commission handbooks, and we will have this PowerPoint available for you guys if you wanna take a

look at

those. And it was pretty consistent too that procedures themselves are inconsistently used and outdated and that there were a lot that put here and both in their recommendations for best practices that having a consistent template with staff reports really helps planning commissioners to be able to key in on the issues that are the focus of each meeting. So effective practices, some of this is probably seems like common sense, but early distribution of materials, You know, we get materials to you in advance of the meeting. Some jurisdictions do. They have self imposed deadlines of two weeks before a planning commission meeting.

Again, structured staff reports, strong chair facilitation was noted as something that's important, and then having staff available, planning staff available for questions outside of meetings. So that's something that we're looking into. Heather will go into that a little bit more. But then also the periodic workshops and retreats.

Now we're gonna go into some details of our recommendations, the themes and the recommendations. So high level, these were the buckets that they landed in. So training and resources, so stronger onboarding, recurring training, support for newer commission, accessible resources, templates and standards, standardized templates for staff reports and presentations, timeline education and support, meaning the timeline that takes a project to go through. Coordination and communication, so clear chair, vice chair expectations. And staff leadership on duty available by 5PM, that's to help with the public engagement part of this, and also support the planning commission clerk.

And then explore policy analyst participation was another recommendation that we have. Again, after here, the things that we present or that you all make recommendations on goes to the Board of County Commissioners, and this is a whole system that's connected. So that was another thing that was recommended. Meeting flow roles and standards, so clarified shared roles, standardized meeting structure and pacing, align staff prep with flow expectations, and then pre meeting coordination norms. And we and we have some examples of that in subsequent slides.

And then annual meeting. So this is something that was added to it with discussion with the board, perhaps. It was it was sprinkled in, I would say, the planning commissioner's feedback, but really kinda dialed in in conversations of can it be simple and this is the annual meeting with the board of county commissioners and the planning commission. Can it be simplified, host in the first quarter, Adopt the annual report? Set clear role expectations.

And then identify opportunity for value added. So as Cecilia had mentioned earlier, the idea of workshops or retreats or things like that. Kind of what this means is like, we already have time carved out for an annual meeting, what can we add to that to add value? So next steps, what's working, recommendations and action, and then moving forward. So these are some of the things that are working.

So materials posted in a timely manner and consistent. Don't wanna take for granted that that does happen and and you know, and we have all the checks in place with staff and with our planning commission clerk to make sure all of that happens in a timely manner. Also, before it even comes to you, there's a multi layered review process that we have in our staff that continues to work and and we continue to work to improvement improve it. A Robert's Rules of Order book for reference was distributed to planning commissioners, but also now to staff. So we have the same reference point and guide where we can look to things.

Recording meetings to reference in the future. As a staff person, I have found this to be very helpful to look at how procedures have worked historically. For example, how deliberations worked through the comprehensive planning process was a really helpful tool for me to be able to look back and use that to help develop my process. And then also the public process, that it works, it's communicated, it's consistent, things are posted on there, people can find things out, they participate regularly. These are things that are working that we want to continue to build upon.

So recommendation dividing up into the themes and categories that we had earlier. So continuing the orientation. Planning Commission handbook is something that Cecilia had mentioned. There's an example. We do have an orientation materials book, but we would like to and this is not all of this is gonna happen, but it's things that we're working towards, to make a handbook similar to Covington that can be posted on our website, that can be referenced for many folks into the future.

So right now it's simply available to you during orientation, but when folks have been on the planning commission for a long time it can be a good refresher. Also that it would be then be available to staff and the public as well. Accessibility, this is another project that isn't mentioned in this, but it's something that the county is working on accessibility on our webpage. So interestingly, as we were looking into this handbook, our outreach team is simultaneously looking to make all of our web pages accessible. So that's when kind of these projects level up, it's an opportunity for us to not only make a handbook that is visually pleasing and organized well, but also accessible.

So eventually, it will be on the Planning Commission website. The Planning Commission web page, so adding additional resources to that. As Cecilia had mentioned, the city of Covington is an example where they have multiple resources that are available to folks, you know, about Open Planning Meeting Act, for example, and other resources to help us look to on a on a regular basis readily available. And then another thing that we're going to weave in in 2026 is quarterly training. So these are quick things.

It's not new information. It will be information that is in the orientation materials, but going over it again for everybody and then taking away from that some very questions that were asked or scenarios that we can share with you all and recommendations of how those can be managed. Templates and standards, so presentation standards, we do have a template that we use for Kitsap County that's very helpful. But, you know, what count what content is helpful, making sure that it's that it's readable, you know, and and continuing to work towards our presentation, standards. The public process, when we kick off a project, you know, that there's briefings, work studies, deliberations, and then findings of fact, and then recommendations, continuing to reiterate that through every project that we have.

And you know, of course there's sometimes some changes within that, but making sure that that is clear to all all who are involved. It's important for everybody. Again, and that leads to the project flow. What's kicked off? When am I when is my input needed on this? When do I vote on it? When is the public gonna be participating? And then another suggestion that was made, which we fully appreciate is the project lead perhaps participating in the pre meeting. Especially when it comes to deliberations part of a project, making sure that we're all on the same page with how that part of the project will flow. Coordination and communication, so I had already mentioned the pre meeting feedback.

So feedback loop is something that we heard multiple times in the surveys. So feedback, if you have feedback about the process, you have questions about the process, just send that to the planning commission clerk. And Clara will work to aggregate that and kind of give that feedback loop through perhaps those quarterly trainings or through emails and giving so everybody's hearing, we were asked this question and here's the answer so that this is like a learning culture. Implementing this, so implementing all the things that we described and also we're looking to build confidence. We're all learning this, we all want to do a good job, So how can we take these lessons learned and and share that with all of us?

There are different roles in this. So DCD leadership plays a role, the planning clerk and staff, planning staff who are leading the projects, and then of course the planning commissioners. We each play a role in this in continuing to understand our roles and and how we work together, you know, to make change in Kitsap County. And then with respect to the annual meeting, so looking to meet earlier in in 2026. So not it's not always up to the to DCD.

So that's working with the board of county commissioners in their very busy schedule, but looking to schedule that early, recommending to adopt the annual report, and then again, having clear purpose for that meeting to make sure that it's useful for everybody involved. And then moving forward, public participation was brought to our attention as something that was important. We didn't look into that with respect to our survey, but we do feel that building a strong foundation for the planning commission, it will help with public participation. I also mentioned earlier our outreach team is working on a variety of things. Something that has come up as far as our projects in DCD is weaving in not only simply like public notice of things, but how do we educate folks on how they get involved and when that opportunity is and what that looks like.

So that's something that we're looking to weave in in 2026, but we'll build upon that once we make these improvements that we have here. I mentioned earlier follow-up at the end of the year. Have we moved the needle on this? So stay tuned at the end of this year for a check-in on that. And then we're we're looking part of this, why share all of this? We could have just done it. We want to share, I guess, all of us to be aware that we're creating an improvement in learning culture and that you are all we're all invited to be a part of it. And then we're happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you.

I firstly would like to say thank you both so much. That was so much more meaty than what I thought it was gonna be in a good way in a good way. I don't necessarily have any suggestions. I would just like to make a comment in the sense that, of my very short tenure on this planning commission From what I see, feedback from neighboring municipalities, you guys are actually doing a pretty good job. You know what I mean?

In reality, you're meeting very consistently. I experienced, I believe, good onboarding, and I was you know what I mean? Everything that's a target for you to touch on with new commissioners. And I know that it's not just about us, although I feel that way sometimes, you know, not in a selfish way, but I know it's also about support staff and things like that too. And so everybody it's important that everybody has that same takeaway.

I just think sometimes it's important your guys' job is really hard, and you start constantly getting feedback. And most of the time the feedback you're gonna get is of the negative kind just because that's usually a leader and wanting to speak out is when it's a negative thing. So I think sometimes it's important to slow down and realize even after doing an insurmountable amount of research and data collection that yeah, you guys are I feel like you're hitting the mark fairly well, and I feel like we're all in earnest serving this county, and doing our best to to fill each of those roles. And whether or not clarity is needed, sure. But I feel like everyone deserves a pat on the back because we're actually doing a pretty stellar job from what I can see in your research.

I wanna say thank you, and I agree. And I think part of the pure research that Cecilia did, we we also felt that. You know, there are things that we can improve, but there's things that we're doing really well, I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Do I have

any other commissioners that want to feedback?

I do. I guess I thought of the survey as, excuse me, just as a simple survey. I didn't know it was gonna turn into an overall presentation, so so maybe I should have paid a little bit more attention when I did the survey. Just kidding. But thank you for doing this. Any kind of improvement, I think, is a good thing, and I think the collaboration is well received on on my end. I think that working as a team is always better rather than working in silos. But I have a couple questions just relative to, so with these changes, are you going to be changing the 2017 rules of procedures and the ordinance, the 2010 ordinance?

It's on the table. So I'm glad that you brought that up. If you are aware of anything that we need to address and there is something that we have discussed internally and have already checked on what that process would look like, you know. So DCD can initiate changes to the rules of procedure and we would bring it to you And then the board would ultimately sign off and adopt those changes via resolution. So it's definitely on the table. I know 2017 feels like a long time ago.

So Yeah. And the ordinance of 2010 seems like so long ago Okay. As Thank you. Mhmm.

Commissioner Hampton?

Yeah. I'll just echo the thank yous, and I love quality improvement. I've I have a yellow belt, so I get it. And I love the idea of the quarterly training, just the refresher. Oh, what's the other thing I was gonna say? Oh my gosh. I lost my train of thought. How embarrassing. Let me just take a breath. Oh, and I would just what I wanted to just highlight that this work is so important because I believe our terms are four four to five years, but just also creating accessibility for new commissioner members to come in where that learning curve might not be as steep, but they have such a valuable voice in the commission.

So I just think about the ways that the commission itself can diversify over time. And so I'm just thinking about, yes, improvements in the short term, but also in the long term. I see that being beneficial because this is just another form of community, you know, public participation. Female Please. Thank you very much for this.

I just wanted to reinforce because I think it's really important. I was thinking about it while I was sitting here, which is putting on our web page, like making sure that like the circle of knowledge is really shown and maybe even a diagram, just so that when people from the community look up on the webpage, they can really understand how the Planning Commission fits into the planners versus the commissioners versus planning commissioners, and how that all is interconnected. I think that that would be super helpful. Thanks.

That's a great idea. Thank you.

Is the survey something you'll be doing annually? Or is this a one time?

So we will be doing it again at the end of this year, especially, you know, to check the benchmarking. And then, yeah, I think we do want to build on it. Like it was mentioned in the presentation, we do want to level up perhaps in other ways, for example, with public engagement. How do we get more people to our planning commission meetings to hear about the projects and what's going on? So for sure, with the benchmarking to see did we did you see improvements? So I for sure this year, and it make it might be a new thing moving forward, but for sure in 2026, you'll see another survey.

Awesome. Thank you both.

David, do you have anything that you wanna no? Okay. Wonderful. One thing I wanted to add on that you had touched on or at least that I'd I'd seen, and please forgive me for my recall. I can't tell I can't remember if it was something another municipality is doing or something that you would you're recommending, is around, like, having more participation in the onboarding process from, like, the chair and vice chair.

And not that this was in place when I came on and not that, commissioner Shattuck was a chair by any means. However, I he was so helpful starting out and just kind of did, like, a quick 30,000 foot view, like, on first and second meeting and things like that. And so I think all of us have all been new somewhere, and it's nice to have a person. That's why, like, mentor programs are super successful because you have, like, a person to lean on. So I could imagine being a new commissioner.

You know, similar to your point, commissioner Hampton is like, if Kathy and I or both or one or the other, we're a part of even just that initial onboarding conversation. And that way, the day comes and they have their first meeting. They just, like, have a friendly face that's on this side of the dice with them and not you know what I mean? The doe deer in the headlights like I am with Claire all the time. You know? So just a thought. I'm I support that. I just can't recall where that was in the

It was something that other jurisdictions do, but we can certainly start I mean, we have everybody on board right now. Right? And I think everybody here is still fairly new, so we'll have Mhmm. Longer terms. I don't know that we'll see newer planning commissioners anytime soon. But yeah. Absolutely. It's something that

Okay.

You know, if the chair and vice chair are willing to be part of that process, I think there's value in it.

Yeah. Absolutely. I agree. Thank you. Alright. Anything else? Alright. Thank you both so very much.

Thank you, guys. Thank you.

Alright. And this will bring us to our second and final general public comment period. Do we have anyone online that is wanting to speak? I see no hands. And anyone in the room that would like to speak? I see no bodies. Alright. If there are no additional speakers, I will close the final general public comment period. And we will now move to our for the good of the order. Do any of our commissioners have any comments that they wish to share?

Quiet group today. Alrighty. Thank you so much. And if there are no other items for tonight's meeting, I declare this meeting adjourned at 07:08PM. The next Planning Commission regular meeting and public hearing is scheduled for 02/03/2026. Thank you.