Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright. We're at 05:30. Looks like Tammy just walked out, but, do you wanna get started, or should we wait? Get started? Okay. Perfect. I will start the webinar.

Recording in progress.

Welcome to the 02/17/2026 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 conducting 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. We please refrain from cheering, clapping, calling out, displaying signs, any behavior that may make 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. And the first item on the agenda this evening is introductions, and I would like to start online. Commissioner Hampton?

Thank you, and good evening. Adrian Hampton, Potential Kitsap.

Kathy Meisenberg, North Kitsap.

David Vliet, North Kitsap.

Ashley Hall, South Kitsap.

Kane Fender, Central Kitsap.

Caleb Nelson, South Kitsap.

Danielle Douthit, South Kitsap.

Tammy Bowen, North Kitsap. Thank you, commissioners. The next item on our agenda is our meeting protocol. Please silence all electronic device 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. 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, use the raise hand button on the bottom of the Zoom window at the Written comments and testimony please written comments may be submitted to staff or emailed to cjoulekidzap dot gov by two p.

M. The day prior to the meeting. Please include the meeting date, your name, the agenda item or subject you are 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. These time limits may be adjusted by the chair when appropriate. The next item on our agenda is the adoption of the agenda. Do I hear a motion to adopt the agenda?

I motion to adopt the agenda.

Do I hear a second? I second. Are there any corrections or additions to the agenda? Hearing none, all those in favor of approving the minutes as pre the agenda as presented, please raise your hand. All opposed? Seeing none, motion passes. Alright. And our next item is the adoption of the previous two meeting minutes. Do I hear a motion to adopt the meeting minutes from the 01/20/2026 meeting?

I move to adopt the minutes from the January 20 and February 3

meeting. Second.

Are there any corrections or additions to the minutes? Hearing none, all those in favor of approving the minutes as presented, please raise your hand. All opposed? Seeing none, the motion passes for both January 2 and February 3 meeting minutes. Alright. And this is going to bring us to our first general public comment period. As today's topics are briefings instead of public hearings, please note that any comments you make will not be added to the official record. I also want to remind the public that this is not a q and a session. The planning commissioners and the staff are unable to answer your questions at this time. Do we have anyone from the public wishing to speak?

I see nobody in the audience. Is there anybody online that would like to to Yeah. We have mister Palmer. Mister Palmer, please.

I think I'm unmuted.

Yes, sir.

Is that correct? I noted the new briefings of Planning Commission will be receiving. I would like the staff people to address a couple of items. If not tonight, at least in the paperwork that they're gonna be preparing for the, issues of, natural resource asset management and rural lands analysis. The first item I would like them to address is what is the public interest versus the private property interest, and why is it not true that if something's in the public interest that the public should pay for it rather than placing the burden of compliant ordinance compliance totally on the property owner.

I believe this has been an issue that has been just totally ignored. But since the property owner has constitutional rights and there are no constitutional provisions for environmental legislation, I know how we get there, but there aren't any. And I'm talking about the Washington State constitution. There are no such provisions for environmental protection. The second thing I would like the staff to deal with has to do with public participation.

Now heretofore, the idea of public participation seems to boil down to we staff will put together something and you public get to comment, but you don't get to have an impact on how the actual wording of documents get put together. Recognizing that staff does put the wording together, but the the public really has been put out of the process because they don't have the ability or they're not given the opportunity to participate in the development of language for those ordinance. I'm a planner with a long history, a lot longer than any member of planning staff in Kitsap County and Pierce County for that matter. And the way I did business in the past, allowed public, members of the public to put together ordinances. I might have refined them, but they had an investment.

They don't have an investment in the way ordinances have been put together in the last twenty years in Kitsap County.

Mister Palmer, I apologize. We're just a little over our two minute mark for the public comment. Thank you so much for your comment, sir. Alright. I'm not seeing any, additional comments online, And will be, seeing as there's no additional speakers, I'll close the first general public comment period. The next item on our agenda is a briefing on the natural resource asset management program presented by Brittany Gordon, DCD natural resource coordinator. Thank you, Brittany.

Hi. Can you all hear me? Yeah. So I'm Brittany Gordon. I'm natural resource coordinator in the Department of Community Development in the Natural Resource Division.

I currently manage a program that's new called the Kitsap Natural Resource Asset Management Program. It's been in development since about 2018, and we are wrapping up development of the program and getting ready to move toward implementation. And so I'd like to brief you all on the program, what it is. And in your materials, you also have a copy of the 2025 State of the Natural Assets Report, which is our first annual report sharing information about the county's natural assets from 2025 that we will be using to inform planning in 2026. And that's an annual report that we plan to produce every year and also adaptively manage based on the needs of our stakeholders and our partners and what kind of natural resources information they need, annually during their planning processes.

So, yeah. I'm new to this clicker, so let's see if I can there we go. And I'd like to start by thanking our program team who helped to develop the program. The development of the program was led by Kitsap County. We have partnered with all of the local tribes, including the Squamish tribe, the Port Gamble Skalum tribe, Skokomish Indian tribe.

And we've also partnered with Washington Conservation Action, and Ross Strategic is their consultant for some of the technical development of the program. The program has been funded by the development of the program has been funded by grant funds through first the Department of Ecology and then the Department of Fish and Wildlife. So currently, we're in the last year of our Department of Fish and Wildlife grant through the Habitat Strategic Initiative lead. And our Kitsap County project team is myself, Jonathan Rain, who's our GIS technology analyst Jim Rogers, who I think most of you know and Kirby Masabiobek, who is our supervisor. We also have a partner in Stormwater, is Doug Adams and in Parks is Irene Weber.

So today, I'll be mostly focusing on what the program is. I can also answer questions about the state of the natural assets report, but I thought it would be helpful for you to have background about the program itself before really diving into that report. So the Kitsap Natural Resource Asset Management Program, I'll refer to it as KinRamp because that's how we refer to it. It's a mouthful. It's a strategic planning program, really, intended to acknowledge that our natural resources are shared community assets and the public trust and that they should be stewarded by the local government.

And it's an effort to proactively manage those assets, to inventory them, assess and protect them, and to make improvements to our natural assets throughout the county. The Kinramp program is really informative in nature. It's not regulatory in nature. It is a program that produces tools that all partners inside and outside the county can use in their planning efforts. And so it's really intended to inform county planning and decision making frameworks across all departments that overlap with natural assets.

The program seeks to collaborate with partners both internal external to implement actions that will protect and improve our natural assets. And our overall vision is to treat natural resources as assets in the public trust to be stewarded by the local government and to bring natural resources to the forefront of asset management decision making across county. So rather than treating natural assets as kind of hurdles to be overcome and challenges, to treat them as assets that need to be accounted for and considered in our decision making. As many of us know, natural resources provide a number of community services ranging from human health and well-being to emergency protection such as flood reduction and wildfire reduction, carbon storage, aquifer recharge, erosion control, and many more benefits to the citizens in our community. And asset management is a term that is traditionally used for managing built infrastructure and treating the components of the public infrastructure system as assets within the public trust that the local government stewards.

And so natural resource asset management applies that same approach to natural resources, treating these natural resources as assets that we should consider with the same consideration to cost of services and investment priorities as built infrastructure. In traditional asset management for built infrastructure, we use terminology like level of service, which is used to describe the function of the asset and the services that it's providing. We also use terminology like desired level of service to set goals for the future long term function of those assets. We are applying a similar approach to natural resources, recognizing that they provide functions to our community and that we can actually attempt to quantify the level of service and the function that they're providing. So all in all, the KinRamp program, it's innovative.

It's been widely recognized across Puget Sound as kind of first of its time for changing planning paradigms in our community. It's integrated into the comprehensive plan. It was, adopted into the 2024 comprehensive plan update. We are seeking to implement Menut Countywide, with, other county departments and our partners. It's also map based, and it uses publicly available data resources and is maintaining county databases, including GIS and a program called OpenGov, which was formerly known as Cartograph and recently changed to OpenGov.

So if you see Cartograph, should actually say OpenGov. That was a recent transition. But it's basically a software program that's map based where we can track our assets. It's used commonly in public works. And we're starting to use it for natural resources as well.

So the Kinramp program is currently tracking three natural asset types. That's what we chose to start with working with our core team. And each asset gets broken up into smaller units. And then each unit gets scored based on contributing attributes. So if you look at the table here, streams is one of our natural asset types.

And each stream is broken into smaller management units and those are scored based on four contributing attributes. So those contributing attributes are the percentage of riparian vegetation, the BIBI score, which is a measure of like stream benthic invertebrates, so like stream bugs, it's an index for stream health, and then some water quality scores and fish passage barrier scores. So those are the four different attributes that contribute to the score for streams. Likewise, forests have two different attributes that contribute to their score. That's percent forest cover and percent mature forests.

And marine shoreline assets have three different attributes that contribute to the score of each unit, and that's the percentage of shoreline armoring, the percentage of shoreline vegetation, and the commercial classification for shellfish growing. And then the assets are assessed based on level of service that fall into these ranges from very low to very high. And you'll see what I'm talking about in a second. So when we roll that all up, and I apologize because the scale of this is kind of rough, but you can see that our county has many natural assets. These maps show North, Central And South Kitsap.

They show the three different asset types, streams, marine shorelines and forests. They're all broken into smaller units. And they're assigned a level of service score based on the score of each of the attributes that feed into that asset score. And we do have an interactive version of this map that will be available within the next week or so and we can follow-up. And this is pretty technical, but just to show what kind of goes into this.

So an example is marine shorelines. We can see marine shorelines have three different attributes that contribute to the score for the unit. And depending on what the percentage of shoreline armoring is, shoreline armoring would receive a score from very low to very high, depending on the percentage of that unit that's armored. Depending on the percentage of shoreline vegetation that is intact, that unit would receive a score for shoreline vegetation, and it would also receive a score for the shellfish growing area classification. And then those scores would be composited into an overall level of service score for that unit.

Forests and streams are handled similarly. And so for example, this shows one shoreline management unit. It's known as Management Unit 64. It's in Seabeck. And this is a view from our OpenGov mapping software that we access.

And we can see that the overall unit or the overall level of service score is 52.5, which is a medium score for the overall function of this shoreline unit. And the contributing scores that go into that are the shoreline armor rating, which is very low, the shellfish rating, which is very high, and the forest cover rating, which is medium. And so those all roll up in the computer system, and the score that came out was medium for this unit. And we can do that all across the county for these different assets. And so we can see that if our level of service for the management unit is 53, which was within the medium range, and our desired level of service is to get into the high range, that would require 60 points.

And so we would need to improve this unit by seven points to get it up to at least 60. And like one example action that we could do in this unit to get to that score is to reduce the amount of shoreline armoring to 49%. That would give us a score of 63, which would exceed that desired level of service of 60. So it's just an example of how we can use the program to run scenarios to determine, like, what kind of actions or how much of an action we might need to do in different units to bring the unit up to the desired level of service.

Do you want us to wait until you've gone through your whole what would be your preference?

I don't really have a preference. I'm I'm okay with questions during.

Is this model is this something that's used by all municipalities to assess their natural resource assets?

So, no, it's not. It's commonly used by many municipalities for built assets. Kitsap County is actually the first in this area to use it in this way, and I think the first in the entire country. The only other example we had was from a small town in Canada. So it's pretty innovative to use it in this way, but there has been tremendous interest across the region from we've we've hosted two cross jurisdictional workshops to share this information with other jurisdictions in the in the region, and we've had dozens of of jurisdictions interested.

We're gonna be sharing at the American Public Works Association Conference in April, and we're regularly getting calls from other counties. King County is kind of doing something similar, and the concept doesn't necessarily rely on the specific software. There's ways to do similar things with other software. We call it platform agnostic, meaning that you could do a similar approach with a different software if you used a different asset management software in your jurisdiction.

Okay.

But yeah.

So sorry. Just one follow-up follow-up question. So the meaning of the score is something that the county is gonna decide that this is the meaning of the outcome of that score. You're determining what that whether it's a good or a bad thing, and you're kind of creating your matrix, I would imagine, of what that meaning is. Question for you.

On some things, some, natural resources, would it and this just might be my just overall naivety, and maybe I should have waited until the end of the presentation. But our would imagine we're gonna eventually come to a natural resource that might score low as it is. However, the things that it would take to get it to a higher score would almost be like an impossibility. Like, in some places, is that just gonna be a reality of some of the resources that you're assessing, or is there an actual, like, mission to address every single resource to bring it up to a acceptable score?

Yeah. So, as I mentioned before, the program's really informational in in nature. We can't require anyone to achieve a specific desire to level level of service. We can say we'd like to get everything to high, but we also know that we have other priorities and things like urban growth density requirements and things like that where we're not going to necessarily be able to achieve high level of service for every single asset and every single unit across the county necessarily, but we can use this to kind of gauge, like, what would it take? Are we are we within the realm of something that's feasible, or are we a very long ways off?

And we can also look for opportunities to maybe balance in other areas where it is more feasible to kind of concentrate some focus in some different areas. And the other thing that it's really showing us is the importance of protecting the areas that are intact because you're right that there are areas that are so degraded that it feels very astronomical to try to achieve that desired level of service there and protecting areas that currently have a higher, very high level of service feels much more feasible. But again, it's informational in nature. And so, you know, the planning decision makers really can use it to decide where to focus, and we can make recommendations. But we're not, like, the final say in what projects get done.

Awesome. No, that was perfect. Thank you. Thanks.

Another thing that's going along with this project is that we recognize that the program is really limited by the maps that we have, and we need to know where our assets are. And we know that our stream maps have been lacking in detail and accuracy for some time. And so we used a little portion of our grant funding to bring in Wildfish Conservancy to continue updating stream maps across the county. They're doing this work with other funding and for other projects as well. But we selected certain watersheds to have them do as part of this program.

And so they have these are points of all the access these are data points that they have taken on the ground doing stream surveys to update the stream maps in these watersheds. And then we recently added Anatai And Ilihi Watershed to get a little more coverage in the East Bremerton area as well. So, and this is in addition to a bunch of watershed other watersheds that they've also already mapped, mostly in South Kitsap, but, some some in North as well. Yeah. So we're improving our stream maps.

As we implement the program, this is a little insight into what the annual process is expected to look like. Every year, we'll kinda update the level of service status. So what what are we looking at for an overall level of service across the county for all of our our assets and what has changed since the previous review period. This is really dependent on our data. If our data hasn't changed, we won't really have an update.

And so in some years, some data sources will be updated, but not all ever we will pull in updated data sources every year. But if those sources haven't changed, then that does impact whether we'll show a change for that year in that specific data set. But overall, usually at least one we expect that one or two data sources would be updated and that we'd be able to include that in our annual assessment when we report out about what's going on with our natural assets and what the status is. We'll meet twice a year with our advisory group, which includes the tribes and the county departments, to go through what we're seeing, what do we see that's changed. We can look at maybe there was a specific habitat restoration project, and we want to look at whether that changed the score in that area, or maybe there was a large development that went in, and we're curious if that changed the score or a large timber harvest, you know, things like that.

So we can we can really zero in on specific areas of the county to see what's changed and what types of things are moving the dial. We'll also do partner engagement where we meet with all representatives from the county departments to share the information and so that they can consider it in their annual planning process. And then adaptive management is really important. Like like I said, this is really first of its kind, and we don't have much to go off of. So we recognize that for the first few years, we're gonna have to be making adjustments to the details of the program as well as the information that we're producing and whether or not it's helpful.

So we'll be really looking for feedback from folks on, like, is this helpful? What kind of information would be helpful? And how can we adjust this to help you with your annual planning? And then this is, like, the 2026 oh, sorry.

No. You're okay. I was just gonna ask what what inspired where did this come from? Did something did something come up in another project that inspired this? This is a a pretty major undertaking to create the wheel with. So

And I wish that I had been here since the beginning, but I have not. I did inherit this development of this program, and there was a lot of, work that had been done before me. So, I did I was told that it it was basically the brainchild of someone in Kitsap County DCD and, that they saw a need for more strategic management of natural resources. And then there was an initial grant from Department of Ecology to kinda start exploring options for, kind of quantifying natural resource functions. And over time, it's morphed into what it is today.

So, yeah, so this is an initial overview of the 2026 comprehensive planning cycle. And so, you know, we're in in early February. So in in January, we published the state of the natural assets report that you all have in front of you. That's our annual report that we started developing at the 2025 based on our 2025 data. And, you know, right about now, planning processes across the county are are starting, like transportation improvement programs, stormwater capital facilities planning, etcetera.

And so we have this information out. We also have interactive maps that, you know, can be used to go into specific parts of the county for informational purposes, and we're available to answer questions from our different departments, you know, if they have an interest in some specific area. We've also provided to them some areas that, you know, might be good to highlight or focus on that came out of the program. And so, yeah, so we're in really the partner engagement phase where we're, you know, getting the information out about what we found last year and sharing the information, especially since this is a new program. People aren't really used to, like, looking for that information.

And then around April, we typically see call for projects come out across the county. And we we could suggest things like a fish passage project based off what we've learned in Kinramp or or a stormwater project based off water quality information that we've found. So, we might, put forward a couple project suggestions. And then the county departments do their annual project review and scoring, and they all have their own processes for that. And again, Kinramp would really just be informational in that process because they have their own scoring processes.

And then projects for the upcoming planning cycle are typically selected around August or September. It kind of varies a little across the departments, but just generally speaking. And those plans are often adopted in the fall by the commissioners. And then in the fall, we would start planning for next year, developing that, report based on we would we would update our data layers and and start looking at those changes from the previous cycle to see, you know, what we would suggest for next year. Some examples of external partners that we work with, too, because I should also add that it isn't just the county that would be doing natural resource management, right?

Like, work with many, many partners, and the county can never do it alone, and the county does not own, you know, all of the lands where natural resources are located. And so we really are doing a lot of outreach with partners to get this information out to them as well, especially the partners that overlap with natural resources. So, you know, the conservation district, they have a backyard habitat program. We can provide them information that can support grant applications and say, hey, this area is really important, and and you can put this information in your grant application. We're really looped in with, like, West Sound Partners for Ecosystem Recovery and Hood Canal Coordinating Council when they support, like, salmon habitat work, and we can use this data to help kinda guide different priority areas and and also help quantify maybe how much of an action is needed to really move the dial.

And then we work with, you know, partners like WashDOT who overlap with fish passage and shoreline armoring and other things like that. And, of course, the tribes we coordinate with regularly. Dave?

Thank you so much for this. I'm glad you touched on it, the Kitsap Conservation District, because they, at times, can put out hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of grants per year for culvert replacement, bridge replacement, fish passage barrier removal. So every year there's an annual report that I'm on the board there. And so there's an awesome presentation that where they rank where they want to put the money towards. And so, yeah, please continue to reach out to them because circling back to what you said earlier about where to put the funding in the future, I think Corinne Anderson at the Conservation District will have a really good read on all things that are fish passage barrier removal projects in Kitsap.

Thanks.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Thank you. And yes, we definitely work with Corinne. And Great Peninsula Conservancy is another one that I didn't mention, but they're always looking for information that can support grant applications on where they should be targeting protection of lands.

And then within the county, these are this kind of shows how the different county departments overlap with natural assets in different ways. So DCD, land use and environmental planning, natural resources, noxious weed management, and then also obviously our permit services overlap with natural resources in their own way, such as code compliance and regulatory. Public works overlaps with natural resources. Roads cross, you know, natural areas. Storm water discharges to our natural areas and can impact our water quality either for the better or the worse.

And same with sewer and solid waste also have the potential to impact natural resources. I do know how to spell sewer. I apologize for that typo there. Parks manages natural resources very directly on county owned lands. And then even the sheriff's office and prosecutor's office we've been working with on different natural resource issues related to derelict vessels and and even environmental crimes.

And then just to touch a little bit on the report that you all received, that could be its own presentation so I'm not going go too deep into it. But the report is intended to communicate the current condition of natural assets across the county. Any changes in level of service this is the first year, so we're not really comparing to a previous year so much. But in the future, that's the intent, is that it would build on the year before and show, like, what areas are changing. It also shows some priority geographic areas that we suggest, as well as priority actions and strategies.

I I see the, goals and achievements listed under the, Big Beef in Chico. Does that mean that the projects are gonna be ongoing, or is it really just an annual focus and then they move towards new projects? Is it gonna be continued work on these projects that may not have reached the hope or the goals?

Yeah. So Big Beef and Chico were our pilot watersheds because trying to do this work across the whole county at first was really overwhelming and data intensive. So we kinda zeroed in on those, and we had identified, during a pilot report some actions that we wanted to track, that would be, good at at moving the dial forward. But those actions are very large in those two watersheds, especially in Big Beef. And so, we definitely wanted to report back from the pilot, implementation process and and show that we are making progress on these actions even though the progress is pretty small.

I mean, it might be as small as we're communicating with this this the Hook and Al Salmon Enhancement Group about an acquisition they're doing in Big B for. We're working on prioritizing fish passage barriers in that watershed, and and it might not be, oh, we did this big project yet. Right? It might be we targeted some outreach to shoreline landowners who have armoring in that area to, you know, provide them resources for more fish friendly shorelines, things like that. So right now, it was mostly smaller actions because we did find that, especially in Big Beef, it's some there's quite a bit of at least for Shoreline Armoring, there's quite a bit of improvement needed to to reach high level of service, that might be one of those areas where, you know, we maybe don't get there in the near future.

And, you know, that might just have to be okay. And then we maybe focus on areas where it makes more sense in the near term. But, yeah, that's why that's why the focus on Big Beef and Chico.

So they wouldn't be abandoned. They'd just sort of move on to new stuff as well.

Yeah. And just attempting to communicate what progress we have made, and then we might find that other focus areas become a higher priority for different reasons, and we might focus on on those in a future, in, like, the next year report. But the nice thing is that, like, with the interactive maps, we can always go back and zero in on any area. We just probably won't be able to include every area in the report every year, but we can include it in the map if you want to zero in on anything. Yeah.

So the 2025 state of the natural assets report, this just summarizes how our assets are doing. Streams were looking pretty good. 72% of our stream units fell within the very high to high level of service range, 23% within medium, and 5% were in the low and very low. Forests were our most challenging asset type. Only 15% of our forests are considered very high and high level service. 54% are low and very low.

Would you mind just just speaking a little bit more into forests? And, like, I know early in earlier side, it's like forest cover was the quantifier or, like, the decider. What what does that definition mean?

Yeah. So, there's two attributes that contribute to the forest score for each unit. One is forest cover, that's just a percentage of canopy cover as calculated using, like, a aerial imagery. And then the other percentage or the other score is, forest age class. And I can't remember exactly what the percentage is, but it's a certain percentage trees that are over a certain size indicating that they're over a certain age.

So, basically, the percentage of canopy that has mature trees Mhmm. Indicate because that provides, like, a higher habitat value and a higher, value for, like, the water cycle, having older a certain percentage of older trees. So, we we have quite a few units that have pretty good forest cover. What we are lacking is that the older forest, we have very few forests that really meet that, like, starting to get into older growth. And so we were definitely trying to highlight some areas that we could protect, where we can let the trees grow and and get bigger and, not be, you know, on a regular harvest cycle where we never really get past a certain age structure.

With that, and this might be too in the weeds, and so forgive me if so. But with that, the allowing trees to grow a little bit bigger, is there also gonna be, like, active forestry management plans that partner with the decision of we need to let these trees grow a little bit bigger? Because there's there could be a a multitude of environmental factors that could prohibit that outside of just there's no trees here or or logging near or around this area. Usually, a forestry management plan would go to hand in hand with that to ensure the success. Is that in consideration at all, or would that be, like, a after the fact?

Yeah. So we, I I totally agree with you. We haven't had plans to produce one out of the Kinramp program specifically. We have been talking to DNR about, like, adjusting some timber cycle, harvest cycles on some of their lands. And I know the county commissioners had, really been interested in working with DNR to, make some adjustments there on some of our high, like, ecosystem value lands, that are owned by DNR.

Also, Parks has an active timber harvest plan with, like, restorative thinning options. And restorative thinning is a strategy that we've identified that could be used to improve age class. Another thing is invasive species, control because sometimes trees don't get, as big as they could because they're choked by noxious weeds or they're, you know Too crazy. Dying from noxious weeds. Yeah.

And so, we we haven't incorporated noxious weeds into the score, because we don't have really, like, a great map yet of our noxious weeds across the county, but that is an example of how we could potentially adaptively manage this program in the future. We could change the way that we score forests by incorporating like a noxious weed score. Would change how we compare to baseline, but it would also improve, I think, the data. And so that's something we're looking at.

Okay. Awesome. Oh, so commissioner Hampton has a question for you online.

Oh, no. I was gonna build off of this conversation. I was just gonna point out within the report, they highlight scenarios. So, for example, like, within the UGA, that's an opportunity, you know, in order to protect forests, to make sure, you know, there's compliance with the new tree canopy ordinance or, like, following the guidance of the PROs plan and that kind of thing. So I was just gonna share that example for the UGA and how that's described within the report.

Yeah. And I'm I'm also glad you mentioned that because, forests, we do we did take a bit of a different management approach for forests because of UGA's, and, we knew that you're you're probably not gonna achieve 80% forest cover in your UGA's while also meeting Growth Management Act densities. And so we made a recommendation that the, desired level of service be considered across each watershed instead of e across each unit. And the idea there would be that you would try to compensate with more tree canopy outside the UGA for the areas within the UGA that maybe aren't gonna achieve 80. Not that that doesn't work in all watersheds because some are entirely within the UGA, and so those would just have to be managed accordingly.

And and we could look at adjusting the desired level of service in those potentially. Nothing is really set in stone with the program. So, yeah, that's that's definitely something to consider, but that was a recommendation that we made was looking more broadly. And then shore shorelines are kinda in in the middle, 39% very high and high, 37% low and very low, and that's mostly driven by shoreline armoring. Our focus areas for 2026 and these aren't really focus areas for for restoration so much.

These are really focus areas for data management and tracking because, again, it's really hard to zero in on every area of the county. But the tribes, especially, were really interested in looking at continuing to look at Chico and Big Beef, which were our pilot watersheds that we're really tracking to see how this program's working, really, and then also adding in Kurley and Kinmen Creeks, as well as, areas that we, wanna dial in and and, kind of refine, our our approach. And then what's coming up this year, we have a GIS story map with interactive map that will be out within about the next week. And, so all all these maps that you're seeing in in the report, can actually zoom in. You can click on a unit and see what's the score of that unit and and what are the attributes, what's the score of each of the attributes that goes into to the overall score.

So you can see, you know, what's the water quality score, what's the forest score. And then I'll be giving a similar briefing to the county commissioners next week. We'll be publishing the story map and the report on our program webpage. As I mentioned, we're sharing, the information at the American Public Works Association conference in April, the Washington chapter. We'll be doing a big round of data updates this year.

We have all that data coming in from Wild Fish Conservancy that we need to incorporate, and it's actually gonna get a little complicated because it's gonna change some of our units. So, we have quite a bit of work to do to to incorporate that. And and I'm glad we're still, we still have our our, contracted consultant on board to help us with that this year. And then, we'll be putting this information out into, the county wide, not cartograph, OpenGov system, which means that, other departments like public works, inspectors, when they're out and they're looking at a built asset like a road or a culvert or stormwater ditch, the natural assets will also show up on their map and they can say, oh, look, there's also a stream here or, you know, this is this fish this culvert's a fish passage barrier and it was a high priority or, different things like that. So it will just help with our information sharing and getting natural resources into the decision making process a little better.

Our grant funding ends in December 2026, at which point we're considering this to be a fully operational program that will continue to be, funded using our existing regular county operations funds. And it's informational, and so it just gets pulled into whatever planning process you're doing, we'll continue to maintain it out of the Department of Community Development. And then we're continuing our partnerships and sharing this information with folks so that they can use it and then adaptively managing it however best supports the users.

I have a quick question.

On the streams, what percentage do you think you you know, you're saying that 72% are good. What percentage of the streams do you think you've is there what percentage maybe did we not look at? Is there do you feel really confident that we're we have a really good map or there's a lot missing?

Yeah. So that 72% is based on the maps that we have, which is the National Hydrography Dataset. And it is not the least accurate, but not the most accurate. And when we update with the field mapped Wildfish Conservancy data, that number will change and it doesn't necessarily and we'll we'll have to communicate that it doesn't necessarily mean that the condition of the streams has changed. It's because the data map has changed.

And we wanna get that done sooner than later because we don't wanna be ten years down the road making that update. We wanna make that right away before we have years and years of, data we've been tracking. So I don't think I could say exactly what percentage is accurately mapped, but we do know that when Wildfish Conservancy goes and maps a watershed, they find more habitat than was originally mapped, because they walk up every channel that they can get access to. They do have to get access permission, and it's entirely, optional for the landowner to to give access. But wherever they get access, they they do walk.

First of all, I appreciate your your presentation, and I I don't think I've met you before, so it's nice to meet you. But I reviewed this at over my lunchtime, and I I'm glad that you touched on the data point. On page I think it was page five, it said 82% of streaming units have not had BIBI testing done, and 63% of management units are not surveyed. So that was a concern that I had about the data, but it sounds like that's gonna continue to

be Yeah. And that 63%, I believe, was not surveyed for BIBI, which

What is is that? Yeah.

So BIBI, our clean water kits app, runs that. And they out in the field, they have certain locations on certain streams they test every year to track. And they basically do like a test plot where they collect stream invertebrates, so larvae and dragonfly, young, you know, dragonfly nymphs and, caddisflies and all the little stream bugs, and, they count them. And then that, location receives a score. And the idea is that the benthic invertebrates are very sensitive to changes in water quality and temperature.

And so it's really like a score that we use to show water quality and sort of the biological productivity of the stream. And so it's kind of a surrogate for a lot of things. Like, could it be fish habitat? Right? Like, need food, and and how's the water quality and and also flow a little bit. Like, if the stream is dry a lot, you're not gonna have very many invertebrates in there. So, yeah, it's just another stream health score. And for streams where we don't have BIBI data, it just doesn't it just gets a null score. It doesn't get incorporated. Okay. And this the unit just gets scored without that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So I'm gonna go back to the conversation that you had about the collaboration with outside agencies, one specifically, WSDOT and streams analysis and data that they use for their fish passage projects. I'm just kinda curious how you collaborate with an agency like WashDOT. Do they come to you and ask you for dataset? I understand that they have their own analysis. They hire consultants to do analysis of fish passages.

So one, I was kinda curious how you collaborate with them on your data. The second piece of that is how do you make the data uniform? Because if a consultant is analyzing the data, Kitsap County is analyzing the data, how do you bring that together as a one dataset that you're looking at to determine how you're going to prioritize projects and whatnot?

Yeah. That's a really good question. So first of all, we do need to do more outreach to WSDOT with this specific for this specific program. We do work with WSDOT quite a bit, obviously, on on numerous transportation and fish passage work. Washdot is kind of interesting because, like you said, they have their own prioritization.

They have their mandate of the barriers that they are supposed to correct, and they they have their schedule planned out for those, fish passage barrier corrections for the most part. But they do still get occasional projects that come up based on something that maybe structurally is is failing and needs to be replaced sooner or something that wasn't on the culvert injunction. And so, again, we do need to do more outreach to them, but we could share this as information. It doesn't necessarily override their existing prioritization process that they use. Like, they do have a barrier prioritization that they use, But it it can still be informational because when they do, like, predesign work, they usually have to report on the habitat characteristics.

And what we have is actually a bit more in-depth sometimes than than what they use, because we report more on, like, the water quality and and the benefit community and things like that. So it could be used, I think, to supplement, some of the information that they already gather in their process, but, but that's definitely an area where we could improve our collaboration and do more outreach with them. And they were really shown as, like, an example of a partner that we know overlaps with natural resources where we should be collaborating, and we'll do more with them too.

I think that's good to hear because I think that for the public, it gets very confusing when you go to WSDOT and try to understand what is generating the need. And then you reach out to the county, and they see it differently. And so it would be really great if the agencies could have a uniform response to the public that is consistent. Yeah. So I was just curious. Thank you. Thank you.

I don't know if I have that is all that I had for slides. Oh, I have additional slides, but that was if you had very technical questions.

Thank you for that great presentation. First, it's awesome that Kitsap has something like this KenRAMP that we're sounds like one of the first to use it. So that's really cool to get. That's pretty cool. So when you were in the on the non regulatory aspect of it, I think is really great too, kind of like what the conservation district does.

So when you like say when you go into earlier on you had an example of armoring, shoreline armoring, like you want to get it to a certain want to get it to a certain level of removal or whatever. That's just data. Obviously the county doesn't have for one thing, it's nonregulatory in this according to this program. But how would the county go about getting funds for removing such expensive barriers or

Yeah.

Yeah, armoring?

Yeah. And I'll elaborate a little bit on the nonregulatory piece. So the program is nonregulatory. The data that we use is publicly housed data, however. So any regulatory agency could use the same data that we also pull into our program for our analyses.

So, like, I I just wanna be clear that, you know, Shoreline Armor data is out there. And if if a regulatory entity wanted to use that for regulatory purposes, they could, and that's not really what KinRAM's doing. But and and also that we don't wanna use regulatory mechanisms at this time to, like, achieve these levels of service. And, also, the program hasn't really stood the test of time to be used in that way either. Like, we have a lot of work to do for it to be really vetted and the data to be really good and things like that.

So that really hasn't been on our radar. It's it's much more informational and and to guide, like, voluntary stewardship and and investments and things like that. And so then to your question about, like, shoreline armoring, so we have Shore Friendly Kitsap, which might be a program you guys might be familiar with. They get they have some funding for mini grants and incentive programs for landowners. So that's one partner that we work really closely with to just sort of show them, like, hey, this area really, you know, could benefit from armor removal.

It would you know, it's like this close to being, you know, high. So if you did a little bit here, we could really move the dial or, you know, this area could use some outreach and or or even diving in a little bit more like, oh, there it it looks like there might be some feasibility in this area. We also are linked in with, you know, the Salmon Recovery Funding Board. Like, I work closely with Whisper and Hook and Owl Coordinating Council. So I can bring this information into those spaces and say, oh, you know, your your land acquisition actually would be well supported by Kinramp because it shows x y z.

Like, if you wanna put that in your application, feel free, or people will reach out and ask questions and yeah. So supporting grant applications.

Okay. Thank you.

Commissioner Hampton?

Trying to figure out how to unmute. I don't have any questions. I just really have all compliments. Thank you so much for this. And I'm really hearing this as an opportunity for us as a commission to, you know, remember this as a tool that we can carry forward in our future decision making, especially when it comes to, yeah, just various decisions.

I have a background in environmental studies and marine biology, and I have hiked up those streams. I've done the water collecting. Like, the fact that there are even so many streams listed here, I think, is, like, totally amazing. And one thought that I had was where there might be something that's, like, perceived as missing if there's an opportunity to fill that in with, like, story or, like, other traditional knowledge that might be available just as a way to kind of continue to uplift that narrative. And I remember, like, very early on in my ecological career of, like, this kind of idea of asset mapping and, like, natural capital and trying to quantify it, like, economically what, you know, ecosystem services, I think is what they called them around that time, are actually providing.

And that was, I think, in the face of climate change and this understanding of are we losing our natural environment, you know, those kind of things. So I like that this project takes a little bit of a more unique spin, and I think one that's unique to Kitsap in that how can we, yeah, continue to be good stewards of our assets here and then just like you said, invest into those. So I just think it's a great tool. And my last comment is on the desired level of service, I do think it's important if that determination is changed. It's just like, that trend is captured over time.

It just reminds me of this concept of, like, shifting baseline. And so I think it's yeah. So, anyway, those are my comments, and thank you for the presentation.

Yeah. Thank you. And and I guess to respond to the last comment, we wouldn't make any changes to desired level of service without there being outreach with the tribes as well as our commissioners. And yeah, we we wouldn't foresee doing that without there being a very good reason and a lot of support for that. But it's also not off the table for long term adaptive management, if it makes sense.

How are you intertwined with the Park Service for Kitsap? Do you have any interaction with that?

Yeah. Like the county county parks department? Yeah. We do. So one of their one of their natural resource coordinators sits on our core team, which is the team that we meet with.

It has been more often, but going forward, it's gonna be about twice a year, spring and fall, where we share the information and do planning. So so she sits on that, Irene Weber. And she also is really great about, like, reaching out with questions when she's looking at a specific project. She'll actually reach out and ask what does KinRamp show in this area. And so Parks has actually been kind of one of our first, like, regular users of the program, which is really, really awesome and and helpful, for helping us kind of adapt and refine what we're doing.

Thanks.

Mhmm. When you mentioned they're gonna the stream mapping is a big part of this in that. Is there stream typing that you guys are gonna be doing with that?

Yeah. They they when they map, they do they do water typing. Typing? Yeah.

Okay. And what is that gonna update, you know, laterally, or do you have to run that through DNR first to get that, or how does that work?

So yes. They so Wildfish Conservancy does submit all of their water type modifications to DNR. It's a we're having a little bit of complications right now with forest land versus non forest land because there's kinda two different processes for that. But they also maintain their own GIS system, and so there's quite a lag for DNR updating their maps. So we have just decided that we were gonna pull in wild fish data as its own layer and be very clear that it what it is.

It's Wildfish Conservancy's data. That's what this layer is, and pull it into our maps, so that we're not waiting on the lag time for the DNR maps getting updated. But theoretically, when the DNR maps also get updated, it would pull into the county system. And that's not just for Kinramp. That's for, like, all our mapping that we use.

Thank you.

Any further questions or comments? Oh, please.

Hi. Thanks again. While you're presenting, I'll confess I was looking at your website, StoryMaps, and you've got a very useful sort of interactive. It's kind of a storyboard as you go through it kind of zooms around and changes and shifts. And you can look at it before and after by shifting the window left and right and things like that.

That's quite interesting. You've got a few case studies where you show images of let's see the first is the shoreline armoring. There's a before and after photo. You can slide the window and see before and after. What's the other?

There's a box culvert replacement at Gulf Club Hill Culvert. There's the Chico Outfall as it connects intersects with the freeway before and after. Do you have any expertise in quantifying what the costs were in the before and after of these case of these examples. And I ask because it would be useful to know imagine as you go and and this interaction goes kinda zooms from different parts of the county to another between Dye's Inlet and Hood Canal and such. And I imagine that moving from one level of service to another is a different level of effort depending on location.

Yeah. And also kind of depending on what what is driving the lower level of service. Like, if it's fish passage barriers, that can obviously be pretty expensive. If it's, something that a stormwater retrofit would address that might be more affordable depending on the situation. If it's planting trees that, you know, can be or or just changing a timber harvest cycle that, so we we early on, the program did look at at the whole economic valuation of natural resource concept.

And the core team, mainly the tribes, really did not want to go the route of trying to put a a dollar value on natural resources functions. And so we could certainly compile the cost data on different project types, fish passage, shoreline armor removal, etcetera. And and that's something we can put together if that's useful. The other but but we wouldn't necessarily tie it to what the valuation of the of the the ecosystem function is that goes that was gained by doing that project because that's, not the direction that the the core team wanted to go with the program, although it is something that it's a concept that's out there, like natural resource evaluation, and environmental economics. And then the other thing that's a little bit that makes it a little hard to track is that KinRamp is really tracking kind of what I think Kinramp's really most useful for is, yes, you can dive into this really fine scale analysis.

But what I think it's really useful for is looking at how we're doing overall as a county at kind of a high level. Are we achieving no net loss? Are we achieving a gain? Are we achieving a loss in in ecosystem function over time at the higher level? And what's nice about it is that we have metrics to track. Like there's so many different partners doing restoration work and habitat protection work. And each of those kind of silos has their own metrics for tracking what they're doing and how they're doing it. Right? Salmon Recovery Funding Board has metrics for tracking how many miles of stream habitat have been regained through fish passage. Right?

But we don't really have, like, one way of putting it all together and kind of quantifying and also putting together the whole development side and where communities are going in and where timber harvest is occurring and things like that. So that's what's kind of been missing and where I think this really has a niche is that it takes into account all the changes on the landscape regardless of whether it was done as a habitat restoration or a mitigation or as part of a development or as a voluntary stewardship program. And so it kinda allows us to look at that. But that does make it hard to track costs because, you know, a voluntary project done by a landowner is going to have a much different cost than something that was done by the Navy. Right?

So it's a lot of apples and oranges, but it does kinda allow us to track overall, which I think will be interesting over time.

I appreciate that answers. I want to understand the way that you use the term economic valuation of resource, is that simply the level of service ranking?

So it's kind of a different concept where they are like some jurisdictions have looked at putting a dollar value, assigning an economic dollar value to, like, a tree or a wetland or stream because it provides, you know, the same amount of services as x dollars of stormwater infrastructure or as x dollars of flood mitigation infrastructure. And so there has there are entities in, like, natural resources who are doing this more, like, economic valuation of natural resources and how the functions they provide compare to the functions that built infrastructure provides with things like flood protection or aquifer recharge or water storage. And, that's just not something that our program has done or is really planning to do at this time, but, you know, maybe in the future if we had the right expertise and the and folks really wanted wanted that and if the tribes really wanted it. But for the tribes, they said, you know, the services that go that come out that are from natural resources are so far beyond what built infrastructure provides. We're not comfortable trying to put a dollar value on it.

Thank you. If I may, so the examples that you do offer in this website, I know it wasn't part of your presentation formally, but I think they go together, right? What were the costs for those? And what how that how did those projects change the level of service as you rank them very high, high, medium, low and very low, right?

Yeah, that's a great question. I don't have that prepared, but that is something we could definitely do with this program. That's a great question. Like this many dollars went into this project and it achieved this change in level of service. And I think that would be a really good thing for us to include in this year's state of the natural assets report. We do have a couple restoration projects that were done recently and that are getting done this year where we have good data, And we could could do, like, a a couple case study examples of and I'd like to include that for next year. So that's a good suggestion.

Because you're talking about instead of looking at locations by unit, by watershed. Right?

Mhmm.

And so earlier you made the comment it would be useful to to target goal setting where it's now 62%, 80% for that watershed, what would that entail as a project line item list? And then what would that cost as an overall total before you look to, okay, now how do we cover it? Where do we go for resources for that? Knowing first, you know, before you build a wall, you quantify the cost. And it would seem that, you know, having gone to all this effort, you know, walking up streams and it's a lot of effort, You would be most, I'd say you, CAMRAP would be most, the participants would be most familiar with quantifying the effort involved from moving from 62 to 80% in this watershed in this watershed.

See what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah. I think that would be valuable. And I think it will take some time to get it kind of into the planning processes where our partners who do all this work, because it's not just us, obviously, they have their own processes right now for how they choose and rank projects. And so we'll we're working on getting the word out there that this is something they can use, but it's not necessarily gonna replace how they use how they choose and rank their projects, but it can supplement.

I think that's a really interesting approach to take and something we'll look at. The story map that you were pointing at, that one is a little bit older and it's more of like a general overview of the program. And the story map that's coming in the next two weeks is very specific to the state of the natural assets report that you have, and it will be more interactive and have some, like, sliders of, like, before and after for the scores and and zoom in on some areas. So so it'll be a little different, a little more updated. Let

us know when it happens.

Yeah. I'll send it to Clara, the link, and hopefully, can distribute it when it's out.

I have one more question. I'm relatively new to the term shoreline armoring, but I've read a little bit about it. And there's not much of an argument for it regarding the ecosystem. But I would imagine as a broad assumption that a lot of private property owners are really passionate about some things on their own properties, like bulkheads and things that are armoring. I'm from Central Kitsap, and I'm I'm just kinda trying to think of my area.

And if I'm not mistaken, because I haven't spent a lot of time in the past few years down at the the Waterfront Park, but I kind of picture a lot of shoreline armoring at the Waterfront Park in Silverdale. So I was wondering since the parks department has involvement with you, if they've considered any removal to use as an example to argue that private property owners should do it, see we're here doing it. Because if I'm a private property owner, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna take out my wall, but look at look at your wall down there at the Waterfront Park. That's just a image thing I had a kind of a comment and question about if if they've considered any of that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the Parks Department seems to be ramping up kind of their habitat restoration work on their lands. I know they've gone through some changes over the last several years and and capacity, challenges, but they reached out recently about some, I think, armoring removal out at Gilmont Cove, which is out in the Seaback area.

So it's not Silverdale, but but it is an example of a park property where they're looking at doing some armor removal. Anna Smith Park was a place where Shore Friendly did, that's in Dies Inlet. The Shore Friendly program did some armor removal there early on in their program. And, and, yeah, we we definitely wanna, like, focus on county owned land opportunities to you know, as kind of our low hanging fruit, hopefully. Because you're right. Definitely for private landowners, sometimes shoreline armoring is feasible and sometimes it's not feasible.

And are there county or state grants available for private property owners that wanna do shoreline armoring removal?

Yeah. There are. And Shore Friendly Kitsap is a good resource because they have some small grants, but they also are looped into the bigger grants, they will apply on behalf of a homeowner for a larger grant if the if the landowner is interested in doing something that's more expensive. And if it's also a high priority for, like, fish, it's like a, you know, high priority area, they will sponsor projects. And they are, I believe, going to construction soon on a big one in Dies Inlet on private properties. That was several private property owners. And I don't have all the details on that, but we could get that for you if you're interested.

Thank you.

Alright. Any other comments or questions from the commission? Alright. Seeing none. Thank you so much, Britney. Appreciate your time. You. Alright. The next item on our agenda is a briefing on the rural lands analysis project presented by Heather Cleveland, DCD long range planner. And forgive me, you guys. It literally says on here, please hold all your questions and comments till the end. So sorry. I'm the guilty one. I led in that. I'm so sorry, Britney. I should've let you finish. Heather, thank you so much. We appreciate you being here.

Thank you. I'll just let this sort out. Okay. Thank you, commissioners, for having me this evening. My name is Heather Cleveland, long range planner with Kitsap County Department of Community Development.

I'm here tonight to present on the rural lands rural lands analysis along with the salmon recovery and local planning and how those weave together. What I'll go through through my slides is the purpose, background, approach, outcomes, scope of work, timeline, deliverables, and examples. And this is the beginning of the project, so things are coming together and you'll see that as I present my slides. So the purpose of the project is to evaluate rural land use conditions. This is you've heard this before, but this is something that was brought to our attention through the year of the rural and the lack of it.

And so time and time and time again, we're like, wow. We have this data, this data, this data, this data. We would really like to analyze this. And so we had the idea of the rural lands analysis as we were doing the year of the rural, and this is the result of that. We would like to use it to inform targeted actions in the future.

So the first part of this project will be the analysis and the data, and then the second part in 2027 will be recommendations. And then I have here, which we didn't know this was going to work out for us this way, but we also received a grant that will allow us to align rural planning with some salmon recovery goals. So this is something that we would have touched on in the rural lands analysis, but with additional funding, we're able to go deeper with that part of our purpose and make that kind of its own purpose within the rural lands analysis. So the background, the state and regional planning context. So as we were working on updating the comp plan and adding the rural and resource lands chapter and having just finished the 2024 periodic update, which focuses on growth of employment, population, and housing.

It became clear when we went to look now at the rural lands that we don't have the same kind of data for rural. When we're looking at planning for growth, we plan that in urban growth areas. But then when we look at rural, it's the leftover data. So when we were asked what is the capacity for with respect to land capacity analysis of our rural, it simply doesn't exist. So we believe, and I think partly why this hasn't happened previously, is it's not required.

So we're required when we do the buildable lands report, which includes land capacity analysis, to do that for in urban areas, not required for rural, but we see and I can you know, just seen things coming at the state level, this is gonna continue to be a topic, I think yeah, as we as the Growth Management Act and what we do with comprehensive planning evolves. We need a need for focused rural lands analysis, as I'd mentioned. So much of that data and focus and analysis was in the urban growth area. What about focus on the rural area to help us with our decision making? And then finally, Integrated Salmon Recovery Focus.

Again, this was a grant opportunity, that was brought to our attention, and it's called, it's from the Department of Commerce Salmon Recovery in Local Planning grant. And the whole idea of that is so much work is being done with Salmon Recovery, they have their own plans, and one of their recommendations is to weave into the comprehensive plan. So this is an example of that, and I really appreciate when there's funding available to help us do just that. So the approach, phased and iterative. So we're not coming into this with saying, Here's exactly what we're doing, and here's what we expect to come out of this.

We're coming at this with like, here are the 12 or 20 things that we'll be looking into, and then we'll start to kinda whittle it down to here are the areas that we think we can really move forward. The core rural rural lands analysis components will include data review and inventory. So much data exists. Brittany had just mentioned this. We also have our own data. We have our internal data. It includes permits. It includes so much data. So we'll begin by compiling that, looking at it, and kind of lifting up. It's one thing to have all the data, which I have some examples at the end of this presentation.

It's another thing to kind of lay it over each other and say, does this mean? But first, we'll start with that data review and inventory. Then the framework is a really key part of this. This can be a little bit difficult when you're starting a project. For example, when you do a land capacity analysis, there's guidance on how to do that. So you follow the guidance and you do it. It makes it a bit easier. This, we're going to be building this framework and looking at looking at the land capacity analysis for inspiration, but what does it mean to rural and kind of identifying different components that we want to analyze. And as Brittany was mentioning in her presentation, what are the baselines for these things that we can understand our decisions as we move forward? Identifying we want to identify trends, constraints, opportunities, and policy I can't say it.

You know what I'm trying to get at? Meaning so as we were looking at some of this data, you find you start to find bright spots, and you're like, oh, this is really interesting. What's the what's been the history of development? How has our zoning evolved over time? What is our conversion rate of working lands? Those are the kind of things that we want to start to take a look at. Consistency with adopted policy, so always looking back, and I try to do that at the end. How does this tie back into our comprehensive plan? And then alignment between analysis, recommendations, and volunteer and incentive based implementation tools. So I was asked early on when we started talking about the rural lands analysis, well, how does this relate to regulatory?

Well, this is something that's different. So as we're looking at developing programs or grant opportunities, we want to identify how can we, as a county, prioritize where we can utilize tools that exist and bring those in. So that's something that that we wanna do, especially as it relates to land use. We are, kind of unique in that. Who else would do that? Who else can help bring some folks together? And it's similar in this way, for example, to the work that Great Peninsula Conservancy does. But what is the Kitsap County's role in that? And this is now the Salmon Recovery and Local Planning. So again, plan and data review.

So there will be some overlap on this, but for example, the salmon recovery won't look necessarily at the permitting and the housing development. That will be part of the overarching rural lands analysis. This will look at stream data and other data, more specifically as it relates to salmon recovery. And then we'll collaborate with Whisper and Hood Canal Coordinating Council, as Brittany had mentioned earlier, and the data that they have and look to bring this together. But again, to overlap that, and that's where we have a unique perspective is what is the current zoning?

What has the historical land use been? And how can we project or yeah. Project some scenarios moving forward. Again, comprehensive rural lands analysis as it relates to that. So I had mentioned land use, zoning, working lands, development, infrastructure, ecological conditions, and habitat conductivity. All part of, you know, all sorts of language that was used in our World and a Resource Lands chapter, but again with that focused effort on salmon recovery. Stakeholder engagement will be a part of this and also analysis and reporting. Outcomes, so ensure the compliance with GMA and state planning guidance. Always something that we pay attention to. We don't want to go off in a different direction, but always making sure we're in line with that.

And then align with regional growth strategies and countywide planning policies. And then locally, understand rural land use patterns and trends. Again, looking back, what is our existing conditions? And then looking forward, support policy decisions and improve alignment of regulations and maps, and then increase clarity, predictability, and public understanding of rural planning for all of us. This is the scope of work.

I've mentioned both most of this already. And then also want to note at the bottom, this does not include an adoption of comprehensive plan or code amendments in this project. This is gathering the information, sharing the results, and making some recommendations that could lead to that. The timeline moving forward or the timeline for where we came from and where we're going moving forward as it mostly relates to the planning commission. So we were awarded this grant December 30.

I will say, you know, really grateful for it, but also kinda there's a lot to lot of work to do to get it up off the ground. So that was awarded December 30. We're doing this presentation to the Planning Commission tonight. And then February through April, the components, you know, the the increased capacity is very appreciated. We're we're very appreciative of it because the rural lands analysis overall, in my opinion, will benefit from it.

We received our contract, and these are the things that we're working on now through April. In reality, that's how long it takes to get things done. As much as I would like to have it already have happened, that's simply not how it works. So we received we've been back and forth with the Department of Commerce on the grant and the language and running it through what I would call a pre review, and it's about to go into the formal review process this week. And that'll take a couple weeks, and it will have to be eventually signed by the board of county commissioners.

We have our RFP out for the consultant to assist us with the GIS work. Really fully appreciate that, because we have our own staff who are at capacity and who will be helping with the rural lands analysis. This one is part of the salmon recovery and local planning. But to have several other brains, you know, with objective perspective to come and look at this with us and come up with ideas, I I really look forward to that. And then also, I'm happy that we'll be hiring a limited term employee to assist us with project management and coordination as it relates to the salmon recovery and local planning.

And then I just wanted to outline here, we'll be visiting you with updates on this project quarterly. So in May, I hope to present to you who we've hired as our consultant, who our limited term employee will be, and then I hope some other components of the project to be up and running at that time to share additional information with you. August, another briefing, and then we'll be presenting again in November. And then we'll have our findings and we'll have a findings and work study at that time to bring to you some of the conclusions that we found through this project. Here are the deliverables for the rural lands analysis.

Existing data inventory and technical memo. Rural lands analysis and framework. So how do we go about this? I will say something that we're starting with at the very beginning, which I am excited about, is what is our existing conditions? And what would it look like with respect to development if we did nothing? So that's gonna be our first scenario. A rural lands report. So all of this we have to kind of have to come we could just look and look forever. At some point we have to kind of put this all together and say here are our findings. And then throughout this we'll have engagement and education.

I'm not gonna read through all of this. This is taken directly from our contract with our grant. I also appreciate this, having been a part of many projects. When there's something to keep you on on track with your timeline, this grant will help us with that. So these are the deliverables that we have, that are connected to the grant that we have to submit then to the Department of Commerce.

It's also really neat within that that we're not the only ones in the state of Washington that has received this grant. So I look forward to hopefully hearing from other jurisdictions on how they've used it and how they're moving these things forward, because I think we're all learning. I will say, similar to CANRAMP, that a GIS tool and interactive map will also be, one of our deliverables, not just to end this project, but, to be used into the future. And then I'm going to end with just some examples. It can be hard for planners to share data before it's ready or we have anything to say about it.

So what I'm sharing right now is just some examples that we found very interesting and then want to share with you a little bit about what came to our mind when we were looking at this data. So this is a these are some potential analyses. So this is the farmland soils determination map. It's interesting, right? We didn't include it in we didn't include it in the rural and resource lands chapter because well, there's many things that we could have included, but we wanted when we want when we share it, we wanna what are we doing with this?

What does this mean to us? Because right now, it's not used in necessarily any sort of decision making that we do at this time. So an example of analysis or some analyses would be, what are the parcels that have greater than 40% all farmland soils? And then you would have a number. What are those?

What within that are parcels that are greater than five acres. What are those parcels that are greater than 10 acres? And so you're starting to get sort of a pattern in looking around to say, okay, what does this look like? All of this is tied to the idea of working lands and the fact that we don't have agricultural zoning. And what are some opportunities that we could do to perhaps have a agriculture overlay or acknowledging farmland preservation and economic viability?

And then another layer that we could add on this is parcels that are currently enrolled in the open space agricultural current use. That would be another kind of shift in the data and how you how we could look at it. And then we could also do this by commissioner district. That is still this data on data on data and kind of showing you a couple scenarios. What we'll do then, then our analyses and kind of recommendations are, is we found this very interesting and here's what we think could be done with this, will be part of this project.

Here's another interesting piece of data that we have. So this is undeveloped lands and development history. So when we were working on the first half of the year of the rural, we were looking at the rural especially when it came to increasing density. And a question that we were asked along the way, well, what is the undeveloped land? So this will help we will work to share with you using the land capacity analysis model of what is developable and what does that look like.

So this is, just some example breaking it down by parcel size, in different zones, what this looks like. But again, if I'm just to share this with you and I don't say any conclusion about it, it's like, well, what am I gonna do with So this is an example of something that we're gonna be digging into and just showing you some interesting observations and and perhaps what it means for Kitsap County and what recommendations or thoughts we have on it. Also, another interesting piece of information, and this was we were we had requests for data, for example, historic and development patterns and these kind of things. And this is an example of interesting historical data. So residential homes and year built.

So you'll notice the largest bar there is between 1990 and 1999. Well, what happened then? The Growth Management Act passed in 1990 and then we adopted our first comprehensive plan in 1998. So perhaps a mad rush, you know, for building homes and subdivisions and things like that. So we have lots of a good amount of interesting data that we do want to look on our history to understand where have we come since the Growth Management Act, and then what does it look like look like for us in the rural areas moving forward.

And this ties into Brittany's program and the Kitsap Natural Resource Asset Management, specifically related to forests. So here's a section highlighting a recommendation, and this is again where we're tying it into comprehensive planning and to take a look at it. So here, they've prioritized some areas for conservation and preservation. So what I would like to do, but they're not going to do the next part that we would do, is to analyze that, to look at current zoning, ownership, historic use, and could we within that potentially prioritize conservation and preservation? And then what are some incentives with respect to state or local funding tools that we could use to conserve and preserve those?

We do have tools that already exist. There could be other things at other funding opportunities at the state level or especially with other partners. But I think the missing part that I've observed for Kitsap County is prioritizing those. So this is something that we would do in partnership with the CAN Ramp program. And yep, here's another I'm sorry, just to take this step further.

So in that they identified opportunities where you can see that kind of tan circle of opportunities for conservation. So we want to take that then within our analysis and to take a deeper look at are those feasible and what are the barriers to actually conserving those. And again, prioritize and then investigate the incentives. So that's how this is different from regulatory enforcement is if it's high priority to be preserved or conserved, what are the tools available to help us with that, that will be beneficial also to the property owner. And then I'm just highlighting here some of and I could have listed the whole Rural and Resource Lands chapter.

So do know that this is very much tied in, and we're going to continue to reference the Rural and Resource Lands chapter and those goals. But goal one, retain the rural character of of the county outside of the designated UGA's. Evaluate legacy PGMA lots, so that's something that we'll be doing within this analysis. And then prepare the Rural Lands Analysis, which evaluates, like I said, the current status and then future projections. And then here's another example, goal tool.

I won't I won't read it, but I what I wanted to share with this one is this lists out some of those examples of incentives or tools that we could use, such as conservation easements, purchase of development rights, transfer of development rights, clustering incentives. Are those something that's feasible? Are those a good idea for Kitsap County? And if it is, prioritizing where those tools could best be used. And then another example, consider participation in the Voluntary Stewardship Program.

It's something that the four PSRC counties, including KSAP, do not currently partner in this or participate in this program, but is this something that we could or should do it? So we'll be looking into that a bit. And just an example that these are all woven into the Rural and Resource Lands chapter. And I I also kind of add, we have this in our mind, but data driven this year and then tying into more of how could these work for Kitsap County in our research and reporting in 2027. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Any questions or comments for Heather from the commission? None? Oh, Ryan, please.

We're way early for this question maybe or suggestion or concern, but

It's okay.

Just came to mind quickly. So as somebody that's permitted a few projects in Kitsap County, a lot of times the overlays of the parcel search can be used from staff to have the applicant generate reports. Mhmm. For example, they'll use the contours to say you need to get a geotechnician or, is that the right word? Geo geotechnical help me out here.

Geotechnical report Mhmm. To verify that what you're doing is good or a wetland biologist if there's critical areas. So those are great things to have to protect the property and the ecosystem. But one concern that I do have since we're gonna be updating the GIS maps with farmlands and forestry is if there's an overlay added to the parcel search, will reviewers see that applicant has forestry or farmland and then require additional reports from people from those professions? Because while that might be a good idea, I just like to recognize that that can potentially add thousands of dollars from those reports and cost to the project. So I'm way early. We're just fact finding. We're not talking about policy, but it's

a concern with I your concern. And so I want to, I guess, emphasize that our approach with this are voluntary incentives.

Okay. Thank you for that. Yeah.

Because I was just I was listening to the So

this isn't regulatory. Mhmm. But I would say it's kind of connecting the dots with opportunities of especially if it's a priority. Is this an area that could be purchased through purchase of development rights? That way the property owner has that option if it's prioritized as protection. You know, rather the alternative is, well, we have a regulation that's gonna protect it. Mhmm. So this is kind of taking that a step further with potential incentives. Is that I hope that makes sense.

It does make sense. And and I love that. I love the parcel search. If people don't know about the parcel search, should definitely use it. It is almost like, how is all this information even available to the public in some cases? But it's a beautiful tool.

And I will say this won't necessarily be in parcel search. Okay. This will be a separate project, not to say that it couldn't be in the future, but it won't be on the part it it will be part of our separate rural lands analysis that it could be in the future. Like, for example, if this leads to something that is an opportunity for an agricultural overlay and, you these certain things would need you would need these to qualify Mhmm. That would be a process where that data would be available to you. So we're not part of this, I wouldn't say because it takes a lot to add another layer to our parcel search. This isn't necessarily recommending that. It will be separate from it.

Okay.

But I can see it being beneficial if it's a program that people could see, like, for example, do I qualify for x y z? And then they could click on that as a layer, but we're not there yet. But I appreciate the comment.

Thank you. Mhmm.

Do you mind if I grab Adrian really fast? So sorry. Commissioner Hampton?

It's quick. I promise. Or at least I think it is. Heather, thank you for your presentation. Could you remind me if the rural lands analysis includes shoreline?

Not as a focus, I would say. So not that it won't include it, but I would say it's more about development. And our shorelines are already significantly subdivided. So where it could come in is with the our observations on legacy lots and how they're less than five acres. So I could see it coming in that way. It might it could come in other ways, but not to nothing comes to mind at this time. And I wouldn't say it's an explicit focus.

Thank you. Mhmm.

Hi, Heather. So I'm just I'm kind of looking for an opinion from you as far as when we're looking at rural lands analysis in this project. When you have goals that come out of the comprehensive, plan itself, such as the goal one, retain the role character of the county outside of designated urban growth areas. When a developer comes in and is proposing a project, what does that look like when it says retain the role character? What are you looking for from them to address that goal when you go to do the review of their potential project?

And when you're establishing the analysis and you're you're kind of weighing it out, how does that get conveyed to the developer and what does that look like? Does that make sense?

It does. And I don't think I can answer it, but I can give some thoughts on it for now. So I'm glad you're asking, similar to the other questions. Like, that's interesting. I would say a major focus of this is working lands and the preservation of that as it relates to rural character.

And then on the other side of it is, when it comes to transfer of development rights and clustering, how can we more clearly I'll go back to the reclassification request that we received. And knowing that there were critical areas on some of those, you know, large parcel areas, we didn't have the tools to have that conversation to organize that and prioritize it, and to perhaps exchange density in one area for another area, whether it was rural to urban or rural to rural. And we also don't have a policy of because we didn't have the data is what is the capacity for our density if we do nothing? And then is our policy to not increase that? So I think it'll be helpful to everyone to know where we're at and where everybody stands, and then to give them the tools to kind of move in the direction that aligns with the county.

So I hope it'll make it clearer where those opportunities are, and then if it overlaps with conservation and preservation priorities, that we have the tools to, I guess, even the playing field is the intention.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Hi, Heather. Great presentation. If you can speak to it, if you can't, that's fine. But so this part time position that the county is gonna be looking for hiring like when will that be posted? I know we have a lot of people in area of groups that are will be really good fits for this I'm sure. I'm just wondering when it will be coming out.

I'm glad you asked. It has to go through a process because it's over a certain hour threshold. So it has to go to the board, and it has to go to HR committee, and then to the board of county commissioners. And so it has to go through a process. I'm hoping March, April at the latest, it'll be posted. And it'll be a full time but limited term. So from the time that they start, the grant ends at the June. So they'll be project focused, but it'll be posted soon. April, I'm hoping, at the latest.

Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome. Do have any other questions or comments from the commission? Do please go ahead.

Yeah. Thanks again. This is a lot of effort. Can see. I'm looking at the approach page number six where it says you'll incorporate land use zoning, working lands, development infrastructure, ecological conditions, habitat connectivity. So that's to say I'm extrapolating a little bit. I'm looking also at the page in the example down 13 where you separate residential, undeveloped, other uses and grand total, right? So you just pick those categories and you

kind

of push and pull on the data. And so is one outcome the ability to see how much residential land is currently developed, how much is residential land that is undeveloped, in other words could be and just hasn't yet, or underdeveloped where I saw one category was I think it was a different report actually I was looking at where it said that the value of the improvement is less than half of the value of the land, right? So if it's an old shack that's worth a small amount relative to the land, then that's a likely you could look at it almost as a vacant site, a development potential. So yes, it's been developed, but likely to be redeveloped. And then you've got sites where they've got riparian setbacks and what do I want

to say?

Water wetlands with setbacks and constraints. So would those, for example, be superimposed to quantify the available development land?

Not necessarily. So those what you're reading there is related more directly to the urban growth area and the land capacity analysis. So it if they are overlapped, it would be done in a different way, and that's the framework that we need to build out for the rural lands because it's not done in the same way for as it is for the urban lands. So it is something that we'll explore and how and we'll share with you our methodology and kind of how we came to this conclusion of when it comes to a land capacity analysis, which if you look at our 2024 comprehensive plan periodic update, it says 2,000 houses are designated to the urban lands. The actual capacity is multiple times that.

But we'll share with you what our assumptions were based on actually doing the analysis because that's just on the back of the envelope, but we have to make some assumptions. And they'll be different. They'll be different, like, is it accessible? They'll be cut just different than it is for the urban growth area. So I can't say for sure what it's gonna be, but what you're saying is what we're gonna be looking at. And this and that was just we wanted to spend much more time. That's just one snapshot of data. We're like, that's interesting. You know, because the framework that we currently have is what's laid out for the land capacity analysis. What would that look like if we did it for rural and looked at it through a different lens? We have to figure that out yet. So what you're seeing is a snapshot of and we have multiple things like that of like, that's interesting, but what what does that mean for rural?

So you could look at your assumptions and push and pull on them.

That is correct.

If those buffers, for example, were to change, how would that reflect the outcome?

Perhaps. I don't know that that would be one, but it is something that when you're creating your methodology and you have to share that explicitly, what was your assumptions when you were doing this? And what were you were you looking to achieve with it? What are we looking at? So we'll share those, you know, what are we looking at? But that's part of the framework that we have to put together. What is the point of it?

Well, yeah, I was looking at the point. It's on page purpose is on page three. And I assume it's intentionally broad, right?

That is correct.

So allow flexibility to decide as you dive into the data, see how it can be used. So, yeah, because it informed targeted actions. It could mean a lot of things.

Sure could.

And so what comes to mind is that it would be useful for that to be able to know how easy or difficult it would be to comply with the GMA complaint updates from year to year, from decade to decade. Because I assume that this process will be useful, the websites created to analyze will be useful for that span of time.

Yes. And so we hope to create the framework that this can be built on and used in the future. And it's a matter of, like, kind of creating those assumptions that then it can it's just a matter of inputting it, but it's deciding what's important to what and what is the point of it that we're that's the framework that we're working on. And it hasn't been done like this. So similar to CANRAMP, it's new. But that's why we're presenting with you to you all along the way of, like, here's where we're at with this. We find this really interesting. You know, do you find this interesting? And also, it's also noteworthy and this takes a bit of pressure off of us. We're not adopting anything.

So this is, you know, I don't know how it'll be used. I hope it'll be useful. I think it will be in the future, but it's gonna inform future potential changes. So it gives us kinda some breathing room to say, oh, this is interesting. Is this the direction that we wanna go and is this helpful?

Thank you. You're welcome.

Can I ask for a little clarification real quick?

Mhmm.

So the buildable lands report, the rural lands analysis, and the critical areas overlay, think, are all really related. Are you going to be looking at how critical areas impact the rural properties and the buildable lands all in one?

Yes. They're related.

Okay. Cool. Because I remember a presentation, I think it was from Jim or someone else from DCD, at the community council in Silverdale, and it was something like 68% of parcels in Kitsap County have at least one critical area, and that stuck in my head. I don't I don't know if that exact number is accurate, but it's really close to it. And that was I I was just shocked by that, but it makes sense when you look at Kitsap as a whole.

That's right.

And I just worry that if there are parcels that are completely encumbered, but they're counted as buildable or available, it's can count against us or vice versa.

Right. And so we will share our assumption, you know, like I showed earlier with the farmland soils. What percentage, you know, and what are we assuming? And at some point, you just gotta put some parameters around it and say this is we find this interesting, and we're at the interesting stage right now. But to dial that in and and what it means, we don't know yet. But, yeah, there's a lot of interesting thing. And I also say Kitsap County is very unique. And so how can we acknowledge that and kinda bring in some of these tools to help address that? Mhmm. Thank you. And preserve it.

Yeah. Mhmm.

I don't have a question per se, but just a comment just to kind of tie on to what you said, Ryan, is, I think I I just have an appreciation for the approach of truly going at this in an analytic analytic standpoint without an out out a desired outcome. We want the the data to hit here. We're trying to accomplish this down the road. And, really, also, to commissioner Fender, it's yes. You can push and pull on the data, but this really allows the data to just be what it is, and then you can decide what's interesting or if there's something if there is meaning to be made from it.

Because, ultimately, not discrediting to you, you can go through this entire exercise, and maybe there's nothing meaningful enough to extract to cause action to take place. Mhmm. But I feel like just given that this really has never been touched before, I just have an appreciation for the process itself and not having a desired outcome or an agenda with it. So just a kudos on the approach overall.

Thank you. And I agree. As somebody who's gone through, you know, requirements and these kind of things, it's an opportunity to kind of back off and see what's happening. I think a lot of folks are interested. We had a lot of questions about data during the so that it comes out of that too. During the year of the rural, a lot of questions. Well, what about this? What about this? What about this? We're reading that into this, project, those questions.

Any other questions or comments for Heather while we have room? Alright. Seeing none.

Thank you.

Thank you, Heather. We really appreciate your time. Alright. And this brings us to the second and final general public comment period. I wanna remind the public that this is not a q and a session. The planning commissioners and the staff are unable to answer your questions at this time. Do we have anyone in the public wishing to speak? No one in the room with us. And do we have anybody online wishing to speak? Seeing none, I will close the final general public comment period.

And we now move to the for good for the good of the order. Do any of our commissioners have any comments that they wish to share? I just, would like to say thank you so much to county staff, everybody here, and our commissioners. This this is exciting, asking good questions and really engaging and and participating in the in the process and what's being presented to us. So I just wanna give a kudos to our our whole commission and county staff tonight.

Thank you guys so much for your efforts and participation in everything that you do. Thank you so much. And if there are no other items for tonight's meeting, I declare this meeting adjourned at 07:22PM. The next planning commission regular meeting and public hearing is scheduled for 03/03/2026. Have a great night, everyone.