Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the 03/17/2026 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 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 proceedings. Please refrain from cheering, clapping, calling out, displaying signs or any behavior that may make it difficult for others to hear or follow the discussion.

Such behavior can also be intimidating to those who may wish to express deferring 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 The first item on the agenda is introductions, and we'll start online. Commissioner Nelson?

Bill Nelson, South Kitsap.

Thank you. Commissioner Hampton.

Good evening, Adrian Hampton, Central Kitsap.

Kathy Meisenberg, North Kitsap.

Ryan Wixon, Central Kitsap.

Kane Fenner, Center Central Kitsap.

Ashley Hall, South Kitsap.

Tammy Bowen, North Kitsap. Danielle Douthit, South Kitsap.

Thank you, commissioners. The next item on the agenda is meeting protocol. Please silence all electronic devices during the meeting. If you are attending in person, please refrain from having conversations with other attendees or staff during the meeting. If you wish to provide comments, please wait until the general public comment period. We offer four methods for public comment. 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 at the bottom of your Zoom window at the appropriate time. Your name will be called and your microphone will be unmuted.

Call in attendees, press star nine on your phone keypad to signal that you wish to comment. Written comments and testimony. Written comments may be submitted to the staff or emailed to cjoulekitsap dot gov by two p. M. On the day prior to the meeting. Please include the meeting date, your name and the agenda item or subject you're addressing. Submitted comments will be entered into the record at the appropriate time. For all speakers, please state your name and the general area in which you live. Comments are normally limited to two minutes for general public comment and three minutes for public hearing comments. These time limits may be adjusted by the Chair when appropriate.

Our next item is going to be the adoption of the agenda. Do I hear a motion to adopt the agenda for threeseventeentwenty twenty six?

I motion we adopt the agenda for threeseventeentwenty twenty six.

Second.

Are there any corrections or additions to the agenda? All right, Hearing none, all those in favor of approving the agenda are as presented, please raise your hand. All in favor? The motion passes.

The next item on the agenda is the adoption of

the previous meeting minutes. Do I hear a motion to adopt the meeting minutes from 03/03/2026?

I move to adopt the meeting minutes from 2026.

Do I hear a second?

I 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? Okay. All were in favor? The motion passes. All right. This next portion of our meeting brings us to our first general public comment period. I would like to remind the public that we are not able to have a back and forth dialogue. This is truly your opportunity to just give a comment.

The planning commissioners and the staff are unable to answer any questions at this time. Do we have anyone in the room that is wishing to speak? Ma'am, you're welcome to come forward. Hi. There's a little button there, and it'll light up red. There there you go. Thank you, ma'am. I'm move this back.

Good evening, madam chair and commissioners. My name is Linda Wood. I live in Seabeck. I'm a realtor, and I am current, president of Kitsap County Association of Realtors.

Miss Wood?

Yes.

If you don't mind, would you stop her time? Miss Wood, just wanna clarify that this is not gonna be entered into formal public record regarding the BLA. I just want you to be sure aware of that. This is just a general public comment. There the public comment period for BLA has ended. You are welcome to provide a comment. It just won't be in the official record for the BLA.

Gotcha.

But you are welcome to provide comment today if you'd like.

Thank you. And I have provided previous written comments.

Yeah. But I just wanna make sure that you're aware

of I where you're And I appreciate it. Yes, thought this was another opportunity to do so. Okay.

Perfect. Yes, ma'am. But you're we stopped your time, so you're still good to do your comment. Thank you so much. Okay.

On behalf of the association, I want to thank you for your time and effort that you have dedicated to reviewing and refining the proposed updates to the boundary line adjustment ordinance. We are sincerely appreciative of you and the opportunity to speak here. I'm here tonight to speak for the Kitsap County Association of Realtors in opposition to the proposed boundary line adjustment ordinance and to respectfully request that the Commission recommend no action and allow the current county code and established practices to remain in place. Boundary line adjustments are a practical tool used to correct survey errors, resolve encroachments, address access issues, and align property lines with existing improvements. State law already provides a clear framework, and Kissip County has administered BLA successfully for many years without evidence of widespread misuse.

At this time, there has been no clear pattern demonstrated of issues that would justify adding another layer of regulation. The proposed ordinance introduces additional reviews without clear fiscal analysis, confirmed staffing capacity, or a measurable public benefit. Even as a Type I permit, an added step creates delays and uncertainties. In real estate transactions, predictability matters. Delays can impact contracts, financing, and ultimately property owner's rights.

Regulatory expansion, even when well intended, carries costs. Additional requirements, fees, professional services, and processing time, all of which add to the already burdened cost of land and housing here in Kitsap County. Before implementing new regulations, we believe the county should clearly demonstrate that a documented problem exists, that stakeholders have been meaningfully engaged, that fiscal impacts are understood, and that the public benefit outweighs the burden of property owners. Is that my time? Yes, ma'am. Okay.

Thank you

very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you, ma'am, for your comment. Is there anyone else in the room that would like to speak? Sir, please come forward. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Jamie Clough. I'm the government affairs director with the Kitsap Building Association. And on behalf of the Kitsap Building Association, I want to thank all the work that you all have put into to this process and to the DCD staff. With that said, we are still not in a position to support this code proposal so far.

Our primary concern is that we still have not seen the full list of submittal requirements that will accompany this code. In practice, the submittal requirements are what determine how this process functions on the ground, how long it takes, how much it costs, and whether it remains a simple administrative tool or becomes something far more burdensome for the applicants and for DCD staff. Additionally, we also strongly recommend that the DCD convene a working meeting with the South Puget Sound Chapter of the Land Surveyors Association of Washington. Surveyors are the professionals who work most directly with BLAs in many counties and local jurisdictions and understand the technical and practical implications of these requirements better than anyone. Their expertise will be essential to ensuring that the final code is both workable and aligned with industry standards.

We remain committed to working collaboratively with the Commission and with DCD staff, and we are here for any questions or concerns. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Is there anyone else in the room that would like to speak? Okay. Seeing none online. Alright.

We have an r browenwavecable dot com. Alright.

Do we have an rbrow online?

Yes. I'm available.

Oh, thank you, sir. We can hear you. Thank you so much. Please go ahead.

My name is Richard a Brown. I'm a realtor for the last fifty five plus years

five plus years.

And I've testified before five before. And I have a complaint. I have a complaint. Last two meetings I was at, I'm, of course, on Zoom this time. The staff took one and a half hours and the public who owns the property gets three minutes or two minutes to speak. That is not right. I remember when it was put in force, and it wasn't three minutes. It was fifteen minutes or half an hour. I would recommend the following groups such as the realtors, homebuilders, association of property owners get fifteen minutes and are allowed

are allowed

another ten minutes at the end of the meeting, to rebut. I would recommend the public gets ten minutes with five minutes at the end of the meeting to reboot to to rebuff to rebuff. I would like a form filled out form filled out that organizations who want to testify such as the surveyors form a group, which they're already in, and take and present to the planning commission the names of group and who's gonna testify. That's my recommendations recommendations.

Thank you, mister Brown. And I see mister Palmer Palmer online Mr. Palmer?

Yes. My first comment has to do with the presentation to the Planning Commission back on October 3. I think that it was a real disservice to the public and the Planning Commission that proposed findings of fact were not presented as part of the presentation from staff regarding the proposed ordinance. Second of all, I find in reviewing the findings of fact that there's no mention of the opposition comments that came in, one of which was a document that Kitsap Alliance of Property owners said in there was no address of the issues that were contained in KPO's analysis of the proposed ordinance. And there's no indication in the proposed findings of fact that there was great opposition by people in the room in the October 3 public hearing.

Those things can't be just summarized in a matrix of public comment. Those are critical issues that were addressed at the public hearing that should have been capitalized in the findings of fact, but we're not. I may have something to say later in the second public comment. We'll see. We'll see.

Thank you, mister Palmer. Alright. We've had speakers in the room and our speakers online. And seeing no more speakers online, we will be closing the first general public comment period. And the next item on our agenda is the deliberations of the boundary line adjustment code project presented by Rafe Wysham, Scott Diener and Garrett Ballou. Before deliberations begin, we will hear a short presentation from staff, planning commissioners. It is recommended to please refrain from asking questions until after the presentation has been completed. Alright. Staff, take it away.

Good evening, Planning Commission. Garrett Ballou, long range planner. This evening, we will be holding deliberations for the proposed boundary line adjustment code and associated amendments to existing code. We have a brief presentation before the deliberations begins going over some of the comments from the public hearing and comments leading up to today and how those have been incorporated into the code. Also, again, reviewing the purpose for this proposed code and essentially why it is being proposed and the issues that it is it would address.

So that being said, I'll go ahead, get into the presentation. Okay. So the purpose of the boundary line adjustment code is to establish clear, consistent review process before recording to inform property owners of potential land use consequences before these become more consequential down the line, preventing property owners from unknowingly creating illegal or unbuildable parcels and limiting those instances where problems are discovered years later when development is proposed, oftentimes many years later. And this is something that we have seen several times in recent years, and it's something that this boundary line adjustment code would aim to address as these instances would be captured at the review process early onset and that these would eventually be eliminated as time goes on, and this boundary line adjustment code would continue to be used. So here are some of the permit highlights for these for the potential boundary line adjustment permits.

So the BLA permit would be a type one ministerial permit, which is the most straightforward and easy permit that DCD offers. And a new change that we are proposing, and this is something that would be on the process side for the actual permit itself, not necessarily reflected in the code. But when we go through the implementation of a permit process, we would add that BLA is shown to be tied to a closing of sale would receive priority review within five days. And if in the permit application, a proof of sale is provided, The review essentially goes to the top of our list and is prioritized. And this is something that we have heard from several of the public comments.

It's a common theme and something we wanted to address in the slide as it's not represented in the code necessarily, but it's more of a process adjustment that will happen later on. All others that do not have that tie to the closing of sale have a max review time of sixty five days, and this is per RCW. These permits will have no public notice required, no SIPO or public hearing required, applications received for compliance with zoning regulations, area and dimensional requirements, plat conditions, those are the types of things that we are going to be reviewing for. We're not going to be double checking the work of professional land surveyors. They are responsible for their accuracy of their work into their their their clients.

This is solely to review for zoning criteria and make sure that BLAs are not unknowingly creating issues later on down the line at the development stage. Okay. So again, this is not something that will include critical area review. This is to occur at development and not at the BLA stage. And so this is an adjustment to the code, taking into consideration feedback and comments regarding timelines and costs and not requiring critical area review for boundary line adjustments substantially reduces timelines and costs here.

And because of that, there has to be some provisions in the code to state that we are not conducting critical area review or we would not be conducting critical area review at the boundary line adjustment stage. And so that being said, approval will not guarantee or imply subject properties may be developed, subdivided, or involved in future further BLAs. Again, this is just reviewing the zoning and not environmental conditions. And so approved lot configurations, they couldn't be used to justify future variances, buffer reductions, or other exceptions as those items, those buffers in in critical areas would not be reviewed as part of this. And so the applicant would acknowledge via signature on an application form and on the face of the BLA that that BLA is subject to such limitations and essentially is an acknowledgment that the BLA is not reviewing critical areas and that there may be some environmental considerations later further down the line when development is proposed.

Okay. This slide goes over the outreach that we have done as part of this project, meeting with groups, surveyors, and gathering public comment through our comment periods. The original project lead met with several other jurisdictions to develop the initial draft of the code that was released back in October, and and those meetings resulted in more curated version of the first draft, which was then provided and published on the website for public comment period. DCD staffs also met with groups interested in development code, including surveyors. We've met with surveyors and implemented concerns comments throughout the code development process since October.

I mean, you'll see several of those changes reflected in the in the code before you today. And the the county also has a surveyor as well, and we have consulted with him on this this codevelopment project as well. And he has experience in other jurisdictions as well as in the private sector as well, so his insight was helpful for some of those updates. And from the public hearing and the comments leading up to the public hearing, we observed the following comment themes, and we've pulled these out here into this slide to touch on some of these. One of the comments that we received was regarding the financial impact of these proposed BLA permits.

And we took a look at the hours currently spent by staff on what's called legal lot determination, which is essentially where we need to determine when a project comes in for a permit if the lot is legal to begin with, and that process is something that involves staff time. It involves surveyors, our current planning staff, and also leadership and even attorneys at times. And so we don't track the time for our employees like the attorneys and our our leadership, but we took a look at the the hours spent on legal lot determination from our current planning staff. And in 2025, there were ninety six and a half hours spent on legal lot determination. And with a BLA code implemented that would essentially reduce that amount of time over the course of its use as more of these issues where legal lot determination would need to occur, more of those happen upfront during the BLA review process because a lot of those legal lot reviews are the result of BLAs that have essentially resulted in nonconforming lots.

Another one of the comment themes that we heard were that the county doesn't have staff capacity or expertise to review BLAs, and that's not the case. Our staff review much more complicated projects than BLAs, large subdivisions and plats that have a lot more complex proposals to them. And again, we're not going to be reviewing the work of professional surveyors with this, just making sure that these proposals are compliant with zoning regulations and not creating any nonconforming lots that would become issues later on. Another point was BLAs with vacated rights of way, and this is a process that we looked into, and it it's actually an existing process that it's already in place with the auditor's office. So if a right of way is vacated, there's a process where the legal description for the abutting lot is altered to then include the right of way.

So you'll see in our draft that that has been addressed there. And another item that we saw in many comments was that the five year moratorium in between BLAs was overly restrictive, and that's something that we are suggesting removal of in our newest draft as well. And then the notification piece, going back to that outreach slide, reaching out to surveying groups, having public comment periods and meeting with folks and discussing the code and getting a lot of feedback, which has been implemented into the most recent draft.

Okay.

And so here are some modifications to the draft code resulting from meetings and comments. So revising code to allow keeping nonconforming lot size in BLAs when desired, and allowing deviation to not meet minimum dimensional requirements up to 10%. We'll get into those a little bit more detail in the in the deliberations themselves. Again, the CAO critical areas ordinance review does not occur with the BLA application. The the five year moratorium on subsequent BLAs is we're removal of that.

Also recommending changing six month recordation requirement up to one year. And again, the review does not double check the work of land surveyors. It's for zoning. Deleting reference to vacated right of ways, as I had mentioned on the previous slides. And then modifying the draft to address concerns about properties that are split by a road, right of way or street.

That's reflected in our changes in the most recent draft. And then also clarifying plat alterations and easements and what may be necessary there. Also, when buildable area is not needed for a BLA, so we identified in our meeting with the surveyors that there are certain BLAs where requiring a buildable area and the resultant lot may not be applicable, and we can get into that later as well. And then just a few points that aren't necessarily in the code, but just some some clarification here. For boundary line agreements and and not boundary line adjustments, these are where there may be a dispute where two parties don't know where their boundary line actually is.

Those types of agreements, which are separate from adjustments, those could be handled with a fifteen minute over the counter appointment or something along those lines and not necessarily need to go through a boundary line permit process. And then for properties that demonstrate a closing of sale is pending and that they need that boundary line adjustment quickly, review on those if that documentation is provided would be within five days, and those would be prioritized over other boundary line adjustments that are not pending sale. For all others, a maximum of sixty five days. Okay. So that wraps up the the presentation there, but I wanted to take a moment and go through the the boundary line or excuse me, the deliberations process.

So we have and you in planning commission before you, you have the draft code and also a boundary line adjustment code deliberations matrix. And we can go through it in a variety of ways. Staff recommends going through the matrix in the order which the items are listed, and these items in the matrix are red lined items, and those red lines are changes from the previous draft, was for the public hearing a couple weeks ago. And those are the items, those changes are what the matrix aims to address. And so we can go through one by one and discuss those changes.

I will have the draft code up on the screen and then the matrix off to the side here. And if there are any amendments from the Planning Commission, there will be there'll be discussion and then a motion to move forward with the code section as amended by the Planning Commission. If the motion passes, that will be reflected on this matrix here, and I'll be typing that as we go. So if I am off to the side typing, it's because I want to make sure that I am documenting the changes as intended by the Planning Commission. And so we will go through those items one by one, but we can also address any other items within the code that the Planning Commission would like to discuss and potentially amend or provide some comments and discussion on those.

And so we can work through it that way. We can start in the matrix or we can start elsewhere and work through the code that way. In the matrix piece, you'll see at the bottom there are also three sections for title sixteen, seventeen, and 21. Those are references to existing pieces of code that are they have some proposed amendments for consistency with the new proposed code. And those have been largely unchanged since October, but those are also on here to discuss and to have moving forward.

So that's an overview of the deliberations process. So moving on into it, there's a main motion to consider the adjustments to the code. And then for each amendment or if there's not an amendment and the Planning Commission would like to move forward with the staff recommendation, for each of those decisions, there will be a motion to move forward with those. And then there will be a final motion after deliberations are complete. And if there is a unanimous vote from the Planning Commission at that time, we can move to the findings of fact. But we can

A quick question for you, Yes.

Yes, of course, Ryan.

I'm just reading through the minutes, this isn't about the presentation. I'll have some questions on that in a minute. But the way I'm reading this main motion, it says, I move to consider by paragraph and recommend adoption of the boundary line adjustment code as presented by staff and as potentially amended by the Planning Commission. So for a little bit of clarification, you're asking us to recommend adoption before we go into deliberations? Because that's I believe that's how this is read.

No. So it's It's happening moving to now we'll it's go through and then Planning Commission can make amendments. So it's not saying that this is going to be what's adopted. It's we're taking a look at the proposed changes. Planning Commission proposes amendments. And then the motion is to consider those changes in these deliberations.

It so, just makes sense to discuss the deliberations matrix before we recommend adoption is all. To me, it seems that way that it makes sense, but we can decide.

If I may, Ryan? Yeah. So parliamentary procedure would call for you to make a main motion and have a second to move forward with approval of the document. Before that vote is conducted, then you're going through each amendment and voting those up or down. And then once you're done with all of those, then you're looking to wrap up that very first motion with a pass fail.

You for the Yeah.

Are there any other questions for staff before we move forward? No? Nothing? Okay. Would the Planning Commission like to initiate deliberations? If yes, then a main motion is needed to initiate deliberations.

I move to consider by paragraph and recommend adoption of adjustment code as presented by staff and as potentially amended by planning commission in these deliberations.

Do we have a second? I second. The motion has been moved and seconded. We can proceed with deliberations And then, Garrett oh, you're gonna be putting the matrix up?

I I'm I'm gonna put up the the draft code.

Okay.

And then I'll have the matrix over here on on the screen, and we'll go we can go through Yeah. One by one in order, or we can go through in another order if the planning commission would would prefer. And then if there are anything if there's anything additional, we can discuss that as well. And we can always this is a working document, we can add rows. We can things based on what the Planning Commission decides.

Okay. Wonderful. Are commissioners okay doing a paragraph by paragraph through the code or yes. Yeah. That would be wonderful, Garrett. Thank you.

Okay. Just a moment while I put the code up on screen. All right. So we have the proposed boundary line adjustment code up on the screen now, and I've had the matrix open on the side. So we can jump right into to the matrix and the first topic on that matrix, the first row, which refers to Section C adjustments prohibited in the boundary line adjustment code.

So as the code reads now or before these proposed adjustments is alteration of the area dimension or location of tracked easements are not permitted through a boundary line adjustment. And however, tax titles excuse me, vacated rights of way and tax title strips may be combined with one or more abutting properties through a property combination as provided in subsection F. For the purpose of this section, tax title strip is a narrow, often unusable strip of land with the tax foreclosed property. So you'll see there's a summary of issue column next to it on the matrix. And essentially, there is an existing process for right of way vacation that is independent from a BLA process.

And so our staff recommendation is to remove vacated rights of what Eric's vacated rights away from this because there's already that existing process, and it would not need to be done through a BLA. Additionally, there is section or sentence added in C2, once merged, the land can be subject to boundary line adjustment, which is for clarification there regarding tax title strips, which may be merged through boundary line adjustment process. So I'll go ahead and pass the baton to Planning Commission for discussion on this one. If there's any potential amendment to the staff recommendation or if there's any questions, we can go into it there.

I have several questions.

Yes, Ryan. My first

question is, is it legal to merge lots in the urban growth area? Growth Management Act planning talks about creating lots and you can't necessarily get rid of lots if you're in an urban area. I'm just asking for clarification on that. Can you aggregate lots in the UGA?

I can take that one. Yes, it's not illegal to merge lots. Now the subsequent development of that lot could be called into question if you merge it so that it's so large that when you go to development, you might need to subdivide it. And that is a density standard that GMA provides no relief for.

Okay. This Garrett, can I talk about anything in C? Yes. One thing I wanted to talk about was Tidelands. And I think that you've added to a little bit of the code.

Later on in the code, you talk about exemptions. And you say that there can be exemptions to the code if it's for conservation or improvement of critical areas. A couple of thoughts I had on tidelands is, I think there are some examples of tidelands where boundary lines could potentially be modified where it doesn't involve conservation. Like, for example, if someone has a bulkhead down at the water that's historically been there for a long time, those are hard to rebuild. They're hard to move or recreate.

If you're moving a boundary line on a tideland in regards to a bulkhead or maybe a recreational shellfish area Mhmm. Or maybe the water has moved where the beach is and somebody wants to move a boundary line on a tideland, none of those would be to enhance or support, like, ecological functions, but they would be restricted by having having the word tideland in there. So I guess my question is, we strike Tidelands from the code?

Can

you point to where you are specifically referring to?

C4, no boundary line adjustment shall result in a property that crosses a zone classification district, urban growth area, overlay district, Tidelands or jurisdictional boundaries. And you can make an exemption to Tidelands if it's to support conservation. But I was just thinking there are some examples where someone might do a BLA where it's not to support conservation, it's not to enhance a critical area, it's just to create to fix a boundary line. That's I would just like to see Tidelands struck or maybe I could hear from Rafe on what his thoughts are.

No, I can support that. We could remove that.

Okay. Do we need to vote on that? Does that just

I think that's something that once we get through the matrix that we have, that's when we'll add that comment of the Planning Commission's so you would make a we would make a motion to strike that. And then if it gets approved, we would add it to the deliberations table. So I reckon we can do it now or we can go through each one of the ones we've already created from staff and then add the ones that the Planning commission recommends changes to. So Just I feel

open to a reference, just a little bit of like our layout for today. It says like after each proposed amendment that we have to make an emotion and vote. So should we I'm okay with that. But just in case maybe we might be more opposed or not on different amendments as we go through, should we do one by one just for sake of clarity for Garrett maybe?

Then we don't get lost.

Okay. I just Yeah. Is the commission okay with that? Okay. Wonderful. Alright, Ryan.

I request a motion to strike the word Tidelands from

Right here, Ryan. Sorry?

Yeah.

I

make a motion to amend Section C, WC4 to remove the word Tidelands. Second.

The motion has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion?

I think vote.

We've got to do discussion and then we'll vote. Yeah. Thank you. No. You're good, Ryan. Is there any discussion from the commission regarding this amendment? All right. Seeing none, are all those in favor of the proposed amendment please say aye. Aye. Right. And over in favor. And so the motion carries. So it will pass. And Garrett, ready to roll.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, I've added that to the bottom of it and so we can go in and clean that up later.

Well, so sorry, Garrett. I apologize. No worries. I know you had a couple of items for that section, Ryan. Please.

I don't think I have any more in this section. So would you rather move through the rest of the document and then maybe at the end if there's something that wasn't covered someone could ask it at that point? Okay.

Yeah, yeah, let's do that. Sounds good. Okay. So we'll move back to the first topic in that first row there, which was the vacated rights of way and tax title strips. So essentially, there's that existing process for right of way vacation.

It's independent from a BLA process. And there's additional line for clarification regarding the tax title strips in that once merged, the land can be subject to boundary line adjustment on when there's those tax title strips being combined with an adjacent parcel. Are there any is there any discussion or amendment potential amendments to that C1 or C2 in that Section C?

I see non Garrett.

I'm kind of going back and forth typing, and then we'll move on to the next one. Apologies for the delay here. Okay, thank you. Now moving on to the second topic in the deliberations matrix, which is applies to Section C3 and C4. The initial code, the previous draft reads, adjustment of property shall not be permitted or separate properties on either side of a road or street as respectively defined in Kitsap County code chapter sixteen ten two nine zero and seventeen one ten six eighty nine or six ninety eight.

And no boundary line adjustment shall result in property that crosses a zoning district, urban growth area, overlay districts, tidelands or jurisdictional boundaries. And then summary of issue here is that there were concerns that existing properties bisected by road or street may be restricted by this provision due to their existing conditions. For example, if an existing property was bisected by a road and there was a property next door on one side of the road and they wanted to do a boundary line adjustment on one side of the road, It technically still result in a lot that's bisected by a road because it was already separated by that road and the proposed recommend or the recommendation by staff is to change language to restrict only those adjustments where resulting properties will be newly located on either side of the road or street. So only restricting when a boundary line adjustment will create a new bisection of a property essentially. So if you already have a property that's bisected by a road, you could do a boundary line adjustment with our proposed language, whereas in the previous draft, that was not something that would be permitted.

Let's see.

An additional piece here, and this is more for consistency with other sections of code is that in Section C4, the use tables in Kitsap County Code Title 17 use the term zoning classification rather than zoning district. So that change would just be for consistency with other sections of code. And I'll pass it over to the Planning Commission for discussion.

What's the risk of a boundary line crossing a zoning district?

So when we have a boundary line adjustment crossing multiple zoning districts, that can create a lot of issues in the planning, especially the current planning process where identifying which regulations may apply if there are multiple zones involved. It's ultimately just it's a difficulty from the planning perspective and it's not something that we want to promote boundary line adjustments that result in multiple zoning overlays on a new parcel.

And I'll add that it's just generally poor planning to have multiple zones on one piece of property. We thought we had cleaned up most of the split lots that existed in Kitsap County through previous comprehensive planning, but they keep popping up and they keep popping up because we don't review those. But where the difficulties can lie is, now let's say you've got a commercial and a residential, We've had people who have had commercial uses saying, now I want to use my residential area for parking for my commercial area. Well, the neighbors around that residential area are saying, first of all, we don't want that at all. It's still residential, rural residential, for example.

And second of all, you've gone and done something that was completely out of character with what this area wide development looked like. And so it prevent confusing development. We to sometimes say you've got to treat where the zones meet as an invisible lot line. That's where your setbacks are from. That's you know, whatever you're going to do on your commercials, you got to be kept on that commercial. But they do keep coming up and it does create the conflict especially when whoever proposed that had an idea about development in their head.

So isn't that caught like you say, when there's a zone with a physical boundary that applies differently on either side depending on its prescribed use in the design stage? Why does that need to affect the boundary line?

Well, it goes back to what we would consider good planning. You don't want multiple zones on a piece of property. Where would you draw the line? Could you have three zones? I mean, it's just I think it's a matter of having predictable planning. And when you introduce multiple zones onto a lot that historically didn't have that zone by virtue of the BLA, you're creating confusion.

I guess I've just had experience in Seattle where Belltown specifically, there are zones that change in the middle of a parcel and it's not difficult for the architect to take that into account. And I don't see that as a specific impediment. It's it's a physical line, right, where the zone begins and ends. And that's known and quantified and the planners can plan around that. You say good planning, bad planning. I guess there's an ideal in the planning world, but

So I will just say that if every comprehensive plan, we try to clean those up. So that's why you see in our comprehensive plan in our zones, they're not straight lines, urban growth areas, rural residential. We clean those up to match parcels. So what that is what you are suggesting would would be allowed where it would you'd have a parcel that overlaps it. And then when we do our comprehensive plan, we would clean that up. So it's kind of this cat and mouse game that we're just going back and forth. So why would we allow it in the first place if our plan is just to clean it up at the cost rates the ten year comprehensive plan review stage anyway.

And I'll add just that it's not that you're creating zones. By virtue of the BLA, you're creating these situations. And I've met with people who don't understand why they can't do a commercial on residential or live on a commercial component of the property that they created through a BLA. And so for them, it's created a headache that they didn't realize was going to exist if they went forward with the BLA.

Question for Scott or Rafe. So the way I interpret the zone classification in urban growth area is zoning and density could affect the neighborhood. And I don't want to say spot zoning, but if it's expanded to the parcel that adjoins it, it could change the neighborhood's impact and feel. Is that correct?

No, because it wouldn't actually change the we we wouldn't re re reclassify the zone. But now there would be a parcel that half of that parcel is in rural residential, for example, and the other half is in commercial. So then to plan how you plan how you review that when that when the proposal comes in can be is challenging and is is not in keeping with good planning practices.

The way the code's written, would someone that has a singular parcel with multiple zoning on it from poor planning be able to do a BLA at all even if they weren't expanding to a different parcel? My family owns a piece of property that has urban industrial zoning, mineral resource overlay, and rural residential. So as the code's written, boundary line adjustment not be allowed on that property at all since it already has preexisting multiple zonings?

The way the code is written is that you would have to follow your zone boundaries with a future BLA.

Like the adjoining parcels that our neighbors may own, you'd have to follow those zones because we have three zoning criteria.

Yes, you wouldn't be able to further create split more split zones. Is that what you're asking?

Yes.

Well, and you'd also have to make your adjusted boundary match the line of the zone, right? So you may or may not want to do that given the dimensions or whatever you're trying to avoid, whatever reason is driving the change in boundary. You may or may not want to be beholden to sticking it to that zone line.

And I don't ask that question solely in self interest. You'd mentioned that there's a lot of people that have things you thought they've been kind of cleaned up, but I don't want to see anybody restricted from doing a BLA just because of some poor planning that happened in the past, I guess.

Yes. And the way planning is geared in some sense is that there's a lot of planning activities that happened in the past or didn't happen at all because there was no rule of law, for example. We generally try to clean up those incompatibilities or those non conformities over time. So for example, you'll see that during the comprehensive plan, the Board of County Commissioners might zone something that's residential commercial and it is expected that over time those uses will revert or not revert, but will become commercial. And so it's a matter of trying to prevent some of those things from reoccurring over time.

So one thing, guess sort of where you get where you're coming from as well, hey, what do I do if I'm already somebody I purchased a partial, didn't realize it would split zone and now how do I how do I make them how do I use that as BLA? Maybe I would suggest to you to that we could copy provision the end of provision of sorry, of paragraph three, where it says this provision does not apply to a property that's already bisected by road, there's a potential we could if you guys could maybe talk about and recommend something that says this provision does not apply to a property that already crosses zone classification and so forth. So to do what you're saying, I think what you're getting at is what if I already have it? I'm not trying to create something, already have it. How do I make a BLA if it already exists?

And so maybe that's the proposal that could kind of be a middle ground there.

Just a question. Scott, you said that you're doing regular cleanup with comprehensive plans and then the new issues are constantly cropping up. Do you have a rough is there like a quantification? Is it five year, ten year, fifty year? Like is this a glaring issue? Or is this just something that happens to come up during comp plan?

It comes up every now and then. It's not very frequent at all. We might see one perhaps two a year. Very infrequent. It's pretty infrequent.

Okay.

It's just that when we thought they were all gone, then new ones do show up every now and then.

Sure.

And that's because of a BLA that just recently happened. Well, can't say recently happened, but happened after the last comp plan update.

Okay.

We have a GIS analyst who says, I think I got them all. Sure. We should be good to go. And then

Okay.

Next comp plan cycle is doing it again.

Okay. Wonderful.

But it's not frequent.

Thank you.

I move to amend section c four to add this provision does not apply to a property that is already crossing a zone classification district, urban growth area, overlay district. I'm gonna ignore the word tide lands or jurisdictional boundaries.

Do hear a second? Second. Right. And do is there the motion has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion?

Okay. Seeing none. We are all those that are in favor of the proposed amendment, please say aye or raise your hand. All right. And all in favor and the amendment passes. All right, Garrett, back to you.

Ryan, could you repeat that one I'll more get it for you. You got it. Okay.

While while he's cleaning up, we'll move to the I'll move to the next one and brief it up so that we can move along. The next one is regarding to e two b. So on page two likely on your document. Currently reads the director may allow minor deviation for each resulting lot of up to 10% of the required light size area and width not to exceed required by the zone or up to 10,890 square feet, whichever is smaller. It was a little confusing in that language.

The intent is the intent of this statement is to allow for what we've heard a lot of comments is I'm just trying to clean up. Maybe a fence is on the wrong side of a property line. I'm just trying to do a minor adjustment. I've got I've already got a nonconforming lot. Now I can't do a BLA to make that slightly more nonconforming to put the fence on the right side of the boundary line.

So this allows owners to come in and take a what is already maybe a lot that is either nonconforming or illegal and adjust it slightly even smaller to adjust those minor movements of boundary lines. So the new one, just to clean up how it's red so it's clear, is the director may allow a minor deviation for a current or resulting lot up to 10% of the total area or 10,890 square feet, whichever is smaller. For those that aren't ready for some converting acres to square feet, that's a quarter acre. So basically, if you have more than two point if up to 2.5 acres or less you'd be up to 10%. If you have more than 2.5 acres you could reduce that by up to a quarter acre to allow for convenience sake and some of the things that have been discussed per the comment section.

A question, Rafe? Is it legal to make a property less conforming?

Be allowed by our code, yes.

What about state law? Does state law allow it to be made less conforming?

State law leaves that to the jurisdictions to manage BLAs.

There any other questions or comments for staff on this topic?

How did you arrive at ten percent?

Most of those are not if if you to get above about 10%, you're doing more than just a minor correction for a fence line. I mean, 10% yes. Is it something we did the math on, on every one of them? No. Would it cover probably 95% of all BLAs that are just trying to fix a little fence? Absolutely. I mean most property you're talking a property that's 60 feet wide, you can move that up to six feet. I would think if you misplace your fence by more than six feet, we've got other problems. But hey, you're not.

Regarding like director and their, what do you call it, Rafe? Interpretation. Interpretation and is there another word? We'll go with that.

Sure. Your discretion. It's a discretion.

The 10%, I've seen that pretty common, like for example, like buffer reductions, people will say that the code says the director may up to 10%, I think. My question is on rural lot sizes that are larger, like rural wooded is one dwelling per 20 acres. If you are in that zoning, like out in Seabeck, one per 20, but you have a 10 acre piece of property. A 10 acre piece of property is 435,000 square feet. So 10% of that's 43,000 square feet, but you're only allowing 10%

Quarter acre, correct.

10% or quarter acre. In that case, it would be prohibitive to that property owner to move a fence line even. The 10,000 square feet can get and I know it's $10,000 and change, it can get eaten up pretty quick on a large lot even if the property is not off by much. Should we just say 10% and get rid of the 10,000 square feet? Or because it's whichever one is smaller.

Yes. Our concern was that if you have 20 acres to reduce that by two acres, that's significant. If you have 10 acres, reducing that by an acre, that's significant. We're just trying to we're trying to allow for corrections of minor whatever boundary lines that need to be moved slightly. We're not trying to allow for major movement of lines.

Okay. That makes sense.

Are there any other questions or comments for staff on this section?

All right. Back to you guys.

Moving along to Line four on the matrix here. The content in Section E5, right here. It reads no conflicts with existing plat or permit conditions are created and no existing plat or permit conditions are diminished, reduced or eliminated. After discussion, we believe the content in Section E5 is covered in Section E9, which is down below. That is boundary line adjustments recorded within a excuse me, boundary line adjustments within a recorded plat are permissible provided they do not modify dedications, roads, easements, notes or other features shown on the face of a plat or its recorded conditions, would require a formal plat alteration.

Staff recommendation here is to remove Section E5 and then renumber the rest of these lines in Section E. So I'll pass back to the Planning Commission to discuss that.

I'll just make a note for the commission, the revised number lines on the screen, if that's what you're looking for.

Thank you. So if there's if there's no discussion on removal of that, is there is there any

I'll just ask for clarification.

Forward. Yeah.

So the idea is just to remove redundancy?

Yes. Okay. Correct.

Thank you.

I think we're good, Garrett, to Perfect. Go

The next item is section e six here, which is actually becomes e five. I see how why that is confusing after you remove five. Yep. Which is all easements, access and utilities are kept or properly modified, which was the initial language. There's lack of guidance or clarity of the process for modifying easements, access and utilities here.

And so our proposed change was all easements including those for access and utilities are kept or properly modified then such as through a plot alteration because if the easement for the access or utilities is part of a recorded plat, adjusting those requires a formal plat alteration. So including that final piece in E5 there allows folks to understand that if they are within a plat, that's something that would be required for altering those items, either the access utilities, other easements. If it's part of a plat, needs a plat alteration for that. And so that's how we came to our recommendation on that, but happy to discuss if there are any questions or feedback on that piece.

Anything on the commission on this section? No, I think we're good to go forward.

Okay. Next Oh, yes.

It's not you're not making a recommendation on this, it's now number seven. No adverse impacts on water supply septic systems or access will result. Where in the code because I remember the health department said that they'd like to review these requests.

Mhmm.

Is that mentioned in this code in another part of the code?

Yes. Let me find it real quick.

We've been talking a lot about timeline and some of the concerns from the realtors have been the timeline for this process. And I don't think the health department is gonna take a long time to to go through their review period, but that's something that hasn't been identified as part of your code is how long they have to take. Another idea or question I have for the health department is if they could give us an amount of feet in mind, like if a professional license surveyor could say I'm 200 feet from a reserve drain field, a septic tank or a drain field, could a surveyor get an exemption so that they don't have to go through the health department because they could prove there's no risk? That's a question.

So I can't speak for what the health department would or would not allow. Yeah. What I would say is we recommend we always recommend talking to the health department before you come to us because it's gonna expedite your permit and find out if

you there's a barrier or not.

Okay.

But it's something that you can absolutely the board the board of the planning commission can recommend and then potentially have that discussion with the board of county commissioners. But we can't This is the prior discussion with the health department, like can't determine what they can and cannot review.

Would it be appropriate to add in one part of the code applicants are encouraged to discuss with the health department before they apply for a BLA? In other parts of the code there's recommendations made to applicants.

I would say that's typically something we put on our checklist not in code. So we put on the checklist as you're applying for a permit.

Ryan, I'll just point out that I think a lot of what they look at now is a paper exercise where a designer is representing a certain distance away from a drain field or a backup. So they're doing that kind of paper exercise now. I don't I'm just cautioning that they may not wanna relinquish that ability. But we can talk to them about how this is how some of these certainly will be priorities that we want to get done in five days.

Just on the subject of timeline, in the code it says Type one is ministerial permit and that's sixty five day review time. Up to. Up to. Once you're marked complete.

Once you have a complete application in, yes.

Correct. And how long does that process take?

The complete application?

Yeah.

Well, it depends on the quality of submittal. So if they don't have a complete application and we're working to make that process more rigid, so that's hard to have an incomplete application, then we can turn it around pretty quickly.

And then in that process, there's that sixty five day state mandated timeline, right?

Up to sixty five days in our hands.

If you do a request for information even after the permits mark complete, does that put a pause on that sixty five day?

It does. So that sixty five days is only time in our hands. So yeah, it pauses the process and then we're obviously not responsible for how long it takes an applicant to turn around the required information.

Without being specific, what percentage of permits would you say don't go through RFI process and you just automatically go through the review? Would probably be a low percentage, right?

If you want overall permits, I would say probably over 50% of them take less than one. Now I'll caveat that by there's a lot of what we call zero cycle permits. So that's like your mechanical plumbing, some very simple stuff. I would say if you're if you are asking, which I think you're asking is your more difficult stuff like your single family residence SFR permit or a title 21 land use permit, I would say that probably 80% to 90% of those require a second cycle. I would say we are this code that we have written in front of us today, we have attempted to make it as simple as possible that I would hope that most of these are a single review cycle.

And I will also say that all of just for last year, the average SFR review day in our hands was thirty five point seven two days. So it took almost two average cycle was 1.8 cycles, but the total time of review in our hands was thirty five point seven two days. An SFR is much more difficult to review than a BLA. So we say 65, but last year we got the average was out of our hands in thirty five days for an SFR.

A single family residence involves more reviewers too than a BLA would.

On the timeline thing, just one more thing on the timeline thing and then we'll move on. You had mentioned, Garrett, that DCD would put a five day priority on people that were involving home sales. And I think that's an excellent idea. That and that's a reasonable request, I think. You know, lot of people are they're moving because they're in the military or they're having a financial hardship or somebody has passed away.

But by not putting it in the code, your idea of what's reasonable or the DCD director's idea of what he would do could change in the future when someone else comes in. So I'm wondering if it would make any sense to put that specifically into code that you would put priority towards residential or any type of sales so that they're not held up in a process that typically can take thirty days to close. Since you already have the idea, can we put that into code is the question.

So we certainly could if that's the wish of the Planning Commission. One of the things that we try to be sensitive to is what amounts to internal policy and policy on review and codifying that because then if we want to change our policy and perhaps improve it, then we've got to go through a code change as well. And so we try to avoid that.

And I get that, but that does create a little bit of flexibility that could create the five day thing never happens or it doesn't happen for long. That's a big concern that a lot of people have.

I won't put that forward

as an amendment because I've already done enough of that tonight. But if someone else thinks it's important, maybe they it's up to the commission, I suppose.

I'll just add that I do agree and I'm interested in that. I was holding my comments till we went through the matrix, but I see potential within Section D to add language maybe around approval of priority review, If the intent of or the purpose of this rate is to clarify and have just procedural clarity. I do agree having some language in there at least for the director level would be important.

Would it make sense to say that those get priority but not limited to that five day, you know, lock it in, give it a little bit more room.

I guess the problem I would have with that is if if you say you're giving priority, but there is no timeline, how can you prove to me that you are when I don't have access to any of your internal? I don't know that you've given it priority, if so like type one, we're saying that it's type one and that's a sixty five day review clock. So we're already stating the timeline in there. And if DCD is saying that they're willing to earlier, Rayfan said that these BLA permits would be one percent of your permit volume. I think you had said

that. Yeah.

Yeah. There were 69 of BLAs done last year in the county. Mhmm. And we processed over 5,000 permits.

So So if your goal is to have a five day review period and I'm not talking about BLAs. I'm just talking about when somebody explicitly says they're gonna be selling their property and there's a closing

timeline.

Sure.

That's what I was wondering if could be in the code.

Yes. To Scott's point, we try not to put that level of policy level decisions in code, if that's your recommendation. I'm gonna tell you right now that that's as a director, that's what I'm gonna be enforcing, but I'm not gonna be here forever. So if you want that to make sure that the next director has it written in code, if you guys are concerned about that, then, you know, I'm not gonna get in your way.

The one thing that I, in essence, we're making a new, like they were trying to, or I'm assuming, I don't know, but we were using a preexisting definition of a permit. And by doing the five days, we're actually, in essence, adding another permit definition. So which could then other people could try to use for other things because we're making a new category, which is fine. I'm not against it necessarily. I just want us to know that that's a big, there's an actual bigger code concept than just this one piece of the code.

And I would say sort of to that point is in the application process, there would be a statement in there that says, if you include a real estate purchase and sale agreement that your permit will be reviewed and a decision will be made within five days. So at least at that point it would be not codified, but it would be clear to the applicant and the applicant could use that to with if they find in some sort of delays. So it wouldn't be sort it wouldn't necessarily just be an internal policy. It would be placed on the permit itself when you're going through whatever clarity or whatever eventual technology we use.

Thank you. I guess if there is an interest, don't have to. I just I'd we've just heard a lot about people saying, hey, we you know, there's timelines that matter. We had someone in the public hearing that was a professional license surveyor and he was an escrow officer, I think. A lot of people are concerned about timelines. And if we can't force you to abide by them in the code, that's just my concern.

Yes. I acknowledge that concern, and that's what we were tempted to capture with the five day review. But to your point, it's not written here. It would be a policy. If you want to make that even more clear, you can make a recommendation.

I'm happy to introduce if we're okay with pausing where we are in the matrix, so don't lose your place.

Let's see.

So I would move to amend Section D of the boundary line adjustment code as follows. So code section d, permit type and review authority.

Mhmm.

I'll just read it in full. Applications for boundary line adjustments shall be processed as a ministerial type one application under chapter 21 dot o four. The department director or their designee here and after is authorized to review and approve, approve priority review, approve with conditions, or deny the application based on compliance with this chapter and other applicable county codes, period.

So you added priority review? And would we need to say priority review for a Could

you second and then we'll talk soon.

Sorry. That's you're right. I second.

Go ahead, Kathy.

So the motion has been moved and seconded. Do we want are

we having discussion on the motion? So sorry. Yeah, the motion has been moved and seconded.

The amendment has been moved and seconded.

Yes, so sorry. The amendment has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion from the commission? Yes.

I think we need to define what that is priority.

With the timeline?

How would you like to define it?

I think that we need to add the timeframe into that because we don't define priority anywhere else. What does priority mean?

It could mean one thing to someone and one thing to someone else. Correct. What does DCD feel like would be an appropriate timeline to prioritize towards BLA that was involved in the sale? You'd mentioned five days, is that fair? That's a number you Yes,

five and just to be clear, five business days. So holidays and weekends would not whereas I say that only because the sixty five, one hundred and one hundred and seventy day review currently by RCW for type one, two and three is includes weekends. So I would want to make sure that if we're doing five

That it's

that it's Yeah. That it's not including weekends and holidays.

Is priority defined anywhere else in the code?

Not that I'm aware of. No.

So we have a proposed amendment to include a timeframe of five business days.

Regarding BLAs that involve a sale? Correct. Adrian?

We wanna reject it and then amend

it. Okay.

If that is what Yeah. We'll reject it. We need to repropose.

Okay. What's up?

Were you were you able where we're at is we are going to now vote and we're actually going to re propose that amendment with some further clarification. Does that Okay. Sound Yes. Okay. All those in favor of the current proposed amendment, please say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, say nay.

Nay.

Nay. In favor. Oh, so sorry. Sorry, didn't look this I apologize everybody. Three in favor and five opposed. The motion fails. Are is there another proposed amendment?

That section, what was that, Adrian? D. D. I move to amend section d of the boundary line adjustment code as follows. Applications for boundary line adjustment shall be processed as type one says excuse me. As as a ministerial type application under chapter 21 o four, the department director or their where am I gonna add this?

The department

director or their designee designee, thank you, is authorized to review and approve, approve with conditions or deny applications on compliance within this chapter.

Where are we putting it?

It was my idea. Now I don't

know where to put it.

Check it at the

In the application, including priority applications that must be reviewed within five days. Business days.

If the boundary line adjustment involves a sale of a property. That was pretty messy. Do we need to say that again? Or do you

get the idea right?

You type it out so we can see.

Yeah. We we'll we'll type it out. He'll type it out in the decision matrix, and then he'll switch screens here in

a second. Therefore, we won't have to

watch him type and judge.

We need to place your vote.

Yeah. I'm gonna read it. Yeah.

And and we're gonna we're just gonna clean it up a little bit. Hopefully, just we're gonna say demonstrate that the BLA is involved in a real estate what's it called? Purchase sale agreement. So just to make sure we're using the correct terms.

And that way they can they have to prove that it's actually involving a sale it's Correct. Not a

Yep. So we'll clean that up here as and take a slight break as Garrett types away. While we're the break Cecilia mentioned to me as she was doing some great sleuthing because that's what she does best while we were talking that eight their closest permit right now or our closest review for BLAs is what we call legal lot review. I know Scott had mentioned that. We do those in when there's it happens a lot when there's difficult we need to do a little bit more research into the whether or not the lot was created legally as a legal lot.

Those have been completed first cycle 80% of the time. So just as something that's equivalent but clearly more difficult, we're still getting through those first cycle 80% of the time.

Can you say what median durations are for complete?

Thirty one days.

Don't feel self conscious about it. Okay. Approve.

A five day priority review. When a when a real estate purchase and sale agreement is provided provided that application provided with the application. Got it. Got it. No. Give me enough space. And

Okay.

And then get rid of the red.

There we go. Yeah. And I'll get rid of this provided.

Madam Chair, did you want me to continue with closing out what is now considered E-six? And just I think we've started halfway in on that.

Yes. Is the commission okay if we do that? We'll as soon as we cover that, we'll go back and review and vote on the change just for the sake. Just kidding. Thank you, Scott, though. I do appreciate that.

Yes.

We're working on that. Sorry.

I know, even with new glasses.

I move to amend Section

sorry.

Section E. D. I move to amend Section D to read as follows. Applications for boundary line adjustments shall be processed as a ministerial type one application under Chapter 21.04. The department director or their designee hereafter director is authorized to review and approve, approve with conditions, approve a five day priority review when a real estate purchase and sale agreement is provided with the application or deny the application based on compliance with this chapter and other applicable county codes.

Sorry, Ryan, while you were talking, we added business in front of five business day.

You want me to read it again? You say Rafe, a question for you. And I'm gonna have to say this again because I'm I'm curious if you can deny that five day business priority based on compliance with the chapter. Does that cancel itself out? What type of compliance would you be able to cancel that five business day priority review?

I think that's what that's saying is deny the application I. E. You provided a BLA that creates an illegal lot makes a lot more non conforming. That's what that is. That's why that's there. Essentially saying that we don't otherwise if we didn't include that we would have to approve.

Understood. So I don't have to read it again. I would like to approve that as it's as Gary has proposed it.

I second. The motion has amended and been seconded. Is there any discussion from the commission?

Okay.

All those in favor of the proposed amendment, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? All right. I have eight, seven in favor. Forgive me for my math today. Seven in favor and one opposed. The motion carries and it passes. Alright. I think we can move on to the next item there. The

next item in the matrix is item number six, and that relates to section E seven. It's formerly E eight. And section E in the previous draft read all resultant properties must have a building site and suitable access. After discussions with surveying group, it was identified that there may be there may be situations where a building site and suitable access may not be entirely necessary for the purpose of the boundary line adjustment in specific situations, including when the boundary line adjustments to occur on public property such as with the park, with Parks property or property that's solely used for utilities or adjustments to occur on parcels solely to support conservation or preservation of critical areas or habitat. And so these specific situations may not it may make sense to allow for these specific situations to still be able to undergo a BLA even when a building site or access is not present.

And so the recommendation from staff is to add exception criteria with approval at the discretion of the director. And so the recommendation is that section e would be edited to read all resultant properties must have a building site and suitable access. An applicant may request an exemption from this requirement. The applicant shall demonstrate the proposed adjustment qualifies for a legitimate exemption under the following criteria. A, adjustment is to occur on private property.

B, adjustment is to occur on utility property or C, adjustment is to occur on parcels adjusted solely to support the conservation or preservation of critical areas or habitat. And approval of such exemption shall be at the discretion of the director. That is the proposed edit from staff that the recommendation. I'll turn it over to the Planning Commission to discuss this item number six here.

Do you have any comments or questions from the commission on this item? Okay. I see none, Garrett.

A question on C. So a lot of properties in Kitsap County have critical areas on them. And in the public hearing, a gentleman pointed out that he had created some property lines that were kind of funky. But the reason he did it was because there was a critical area on one of his properties, not on the other. And to create a buildable lot, he drew a weird lot line to include a critical area. Generally, it seems like that's something that DCD doesn't like. Is that correct?

That's correct. And that will be picked up during the actual development application for that property at some future point.

Say that again?

So based on the fact that we're not we're proposing not to review this to critical areas ordinance, we would not catch that during we that would not be reviewed during the BLA process. That would be reviewed when somebody comes in to develop.

Okay. I just wanna make sure that somebody could do a BLA that makes kind of a weird property line if it makes their lot more buildable and protects a critical area. But in c, it says the adjustment is to occur on parcels adjusted solely to support conservation or preservation of critical areas or habitat. And I'm just trying to say that if you're doing a BLA to preserve a habitat but also building on a parcel next to it, DCD could potentially argue that that's not solely to preserve that habitat.

But you're saying it would have a building site on it, so it would you wouldn't need this caveat. So they would still apply that you would be able to do it because it has a building site on it.

Okay. Thank you.

And an example given for that when it would be an adjustment solely to support the preservation or conservation is, for example, like a conservation district that purchases parcels for salmon recovery or something along those lines, and they want to do a BLA for those purposes. In that case, you would not have a building site, but you might still want to have a BLA for that. And so there are certain specific situations where this would apply and that would be one of them.

Okay. Thank you, Garrett.

Yeah. Thank

you. Just for clarity, are we speaking of solely a building site or are we also speaking of a buildable site?

Building site or excuse me, yeah. Yep.

Building site.

Any other comments or questions on this for staff? Okay. Thank you, Garrett. We're ready to go forward.

Thank you. The next item is seven on the deliberations matrix before you. And this is regarding the five year BLA moratorium that was in the previous draft. And after meeting and discussing with with surveyors and receiving public comment throughout the public hearing and and the comment period leading up to public hearing. It was identified that a five year BLA moratorium in between subsequent BLAs can be excessive and prohibitive in some situations. And the intent of including this in the code was to prevent the use of BLAs for circumvention of subdivision requirements. And those were that was shown in some of the exhibits in previous presentations

to

the Planning Commission. But Section E9 addresses boundary line adjustments, not modifying these not making modifications to circumvent subdivision regulations. And so we believe that that section within the code that we already have in there in the proposed code kind of negates the need for a five year BLA moratorium because they'll during the review process, we'll we'll take a look and make sure that nothing is being done to circumvent those requirements with subsequent BLAs and not necessarily need a moratorium in between those. It was identified that there may be situations where multiple BLAs back to back make sense if there were something done by mistake and needed a quick adjustment. And then if there was a moratorium in between those that may not make sense and having to wait that five years is would be a burden in that case.

And so because of those reasons, we recommend removal of E13 from the proposed code.

Are there any questions or comments from the commission?

Could we just go over Section E9 just because we changed some If of the numbers you could just point that out.

Excuse me. Formally e nine, now e eight.

Okay. So the adjustment is not part of the concurrent. Thank you.

Okay. Any other comments or questions regarding the section? Alright. Seeing none, Garrett. K.

K. The next item is for section f f three here, and this is a change that was made, earlier on, regarding the vacated rights of way and tax title strip section in section c, and this is changing the section f three to be consistent with the changes made above in in section c. So it would strike out vacated rights of way and just tax title strips. Again, that's going back to the fact that we have an existing process for vacated right of way mergers essentially with adjacent properties and that would not require a BLA. So this one's fairly straightforward just for consistency with the previous change.

Any questions, comments?

Okay. The next item nine is Section J4.

Garrett, I'm sorry to interrupt you.

Yeah. Go ahead, Ryan.

So we've talked about doing the five year review period. What did I say? Five year. We got rid of the five year moratorium, but we talked about the five day review period. Going back a section or two, on our paper it says 11 and it talks about the Kitsap Public Health District. It says properties proposed to be served by on-site sewage disposal systems must be reviewed and approved by Kitsap Public Health District prior to director approval. I'm just asking for clarification on at what point the applicant needs

to go to

the health department because if there's a five day review period that RAFE has to get back to them, it should maybe be changed to when the permit's applied for. It has to be you have to go to help the permit before you even apply for the permit. Mhmm. So that's on the checklist. Maybe on the checklist. Okay. But the code would contradict a little bit itself because it says prior to director approval, not permit application.

It's it's the that five year that five day, just if I may, it starts once they have a complete submitted application. So And that would meet that on the checklist.

Thank you for the clarification.

Yeah, absolutely. Any other questions or comments for staff on this section? All right. Seeing none, Garrett. Okay.

So line item nine here is is section j four. In in the initial earlier draft read properly property configurations or topography resulting from a BLA approval cannot be used to justify a future variance buffer reduction or other exception from county code. Staff suggestion is to remove the word topography or topography resulting from BLA as topography is kind of concluded under property configurations and recommend it not being included separately and spelled out there.

Any comments or questions on that item? Seeing none. Okay.

The next item is section k, final documents, recording and signatures. And so the initial section states within six months of approval of the application for boundary line adjustment or property combination or merger, the applicant is required to record all final documents with the county auditor, including the survey map signed and stamped by the surveyor, revised legal descriptions, notice to title, and any deeds conveying property. We we received feedback that requiring one or excuse me, six months within approval to have that recorded with the auditor's office, maybe restrictive in regard to property tax payments depending on when the BLA is recorded or when the approval is received. And so we staff recommendation is to change six months to one year of approval for that recording requirement with the auditor's office. And then an additional statement added at the end of that, which is at the end of section k, which is if the adjustment is not recorded within one year of approval, the approval shall expire unless an extension is otherwise approved in advance by the director.

Just for clarity sake Mhmm. Reached the one year mark and the approval is expired. What is what's the result of that? What does that look like in in reality?

It would require you to come in and reapply for that BLA. The BLA, because if you never recorded it

Okay.

So then you would have to come back in and, reapply for it.

Okay.

That's or or it would just expire.

Okay. Are there any other questions or comments on this particular section from the commission?

I have a question on some verbiage in Kaye, but it's more about a general question. In the previous public hearing, I'd asked Rafe the difference between a surveyor being required to do a BLA and a surveyor being required to do a survey and a BLA. So when I read K, it says final documents, hold on a second, including the survey map signed and stamped by the surveyor, revised legal descriptions, notice of title and any deeds conveying property. That to me means, and this is the clarification I would like, are we requiring that people do a survey as well in their BLA, or are we just requiring a surveyor do the BLA or either?

A survey is required, signed and stamped by the surveyor as part of the application materials for the for the BLA. So

Like a prior survey could be accepted or a current one with the revised

Showing the adjustment.

So I guess the problem I have with that is a survey is the most expensive part a field survey is the most expensive part of a BLA. It's going to cost thousands go ahead.

So let's say you have a lot that's been properly surveyed and you're adjusting so let me back up, whatever you're adjusting toward is that's what we're going to ask be shown by a surveyor. The new meets and bounds of that new lot line. We're not going to ask for a survey of the entire properties. They'll be able to rely on recorded surveyors for the basis of the BLA.

The way I read final documents including the survey map to me would infer that you have to do a survey as part of the BLA. All I'm trying to say is if you can do a BLA and you can use a professional license surveyor who can at their discretion adjust a legal description and maybe include an exhibit map instead of a full survey, A BLA is going to be a fraction of the price compared to if you require them do a survey.

That's the intent. Yeah.

So should we That's the intent. So if if you have proposed language that cleans that up, we're happy to Before hear

I go through the trouble of doing the amendment, can I run it maybe by everyone?

If you say, I mean, how I read this, the survey map, that's the piece that you sent into this to the for the BLA. Like it's not a that doesn't say a full survey of my entire property. It just says the survey piece that's changing the map, which and so in my how I would have read this was that it was just the small piece that I'm changing, not that I am paying for a whole surveyor.

But if you are

And on the checklist, it would have we would have already accepted, like, it would tell us what we needed.

Okay. I'm not sure how you would include a survey map if you didn't have a survey done.

The piece of paper that gives the new definition to some can be called the map, like where that defining where that boundary line is.

I think that would actually be in the revised legal description.

I mean, is that correct stuff? Just so just we can hear it from you directly. You're requiring a revised legal description and an updated survey map showing the new boundaries from a stamped license surveyor. Is that the proper interpretation of that section?

Yes, that is the proper interpretation.

Okay, both would be required then.

Me just give an example. Let's say this is a square parcel and you've got a lot line that runs down the middle. Now you want to take it and run the lot line this way. Areas haven't changed. All you're you're relying on a previous survey for the outer parcel and you're looking at a vacation of a of a of a lot line, if you will, keep it simple. But then you're gonna show on a survey map the new lot line and you'll provide a legal description to back that up.

Can I ask a question? What are you requiring with the application when somebody applies? Can you just outline what you're looking for in the application, the initial application? And then I wanna say something after you share what you're expecting with the application.

Yes. So we don't have a formal checklist yet, but we would have on there the survey signed and stamped by the surveyor, the revised legal description. We would want to see that if there is a purchase agreement that would lead to us moving it higher up in the review list, we'd want to see that in there as well. And we're working with current planning as well on kind of identifying what should be in there with the permit itself, what should be required. Yeah.

Okay. And also, we need a pre and a post, so we can see from the existing layout what it looks like in terms of areas or conformities, and then of course the resultant post BLA survey map. And the importance of having it surveyed is you also get it pinned, you get it monumented. And that's where you can identify your property lines and rely on that. So that's the importance of the survey.

I think where some of my questions arose earlier is that in thinking about the applicant and what they're proposing upfront. You all had shared that a pre application might be the right tool to use to kind of pitch the idea, bring it to you all, you all could look at it, you're looking at zoning and whatnot and giving like a a green light. This looks good. Go ahead. But there was still some, confusion as to what you were requiring at the time of application.

The way that I read this, it says the applicant is required to record all final documents with the county auditor including the survey map signed and stamped by the surveyor, revised legal description, notice to title. But for the application, I know a lot of people aren't going to be able to find a survey from 1989 or a survey from 1995, to be able to use that with their application. So I guess the question would become, is the applicant going and hiring a surveyor to help them through that, and are they required to provide a survey if they can't locate a survey of their land for this application? So they're putting themselves in a situation where they're paying for a licensed surveyor, can help them for sure, but what are you requiring up front?

So up front we require the signed survey map, and we will require the revised legal descriptions. And I would just add that, I've mentioned this previously, of the 69 BLAs that were recorded in Kitsap County in 2025, 62 of them had all those documents that I just mentioned. So only seven did not have a map associated with the recording.

How many of those were prepared by a surveyor?

All 62.

To circle back to what we were talking about earlier, regardless of the verbiage for what's currently included, what I see would be valuable to add to this code is to give the surveyor their discretion to deem if they think a field survey is necessary or not or if they can calculate via simple mathematics and existing exterior points into the legal language which is what I believe how surveyors can do BLAs, that would prevent a person from being required to spend thousands of dollars on a field survey if it wasn't necessary. So that's the verbiage I'd like to add. And the surveyor is a licensed professional that can be held liable for mistakes that they make. So giving them the discretion is exactly what you guys have talked about. We're not trying to correct their work, but we should also give them discretion to deem if they need to do a survey or not or if they can just update it through legal descriptions.

So can I follow with a question? Yeah. When do you think it wouldn't be needed?

Well, I'm actually doing a BLA right now. I've hired a licensed surveyor. We're not doing a survey. We have existing pins on the outside of the property. We're not moving them. They've been located previously and it's a large parcel. So to require a full field survey could cost $10,000 but we're doing it for $1,000 instead. So I'm just asking the surveyor to be the one that make that determination if the survey is required or not.

I think in your example where all the monuments, the pans, everything has already been set, that makes makes sense. We don't often see a lot that are that are doing a BLA that are not creating some new lot line or two or three or several.

But even if you're creating a new lot line, if there's existing pins and the surveyor can say in the legal description, the west 50 feet or whatever have you, that wouldn't necessarily require the need for those pins to be set. I'm not a surveyor and I'm kind of coming across like I'm acting like I I am. I'm not a surveyor. I'm sure that there's some surveyors in the audience. There's been plenty that have gave presentations.

I'm just I'm just wondering if if a recorded survey should only be and I had wrote something down. A recorded survey should only be required if mandated by law or at the discretion of the surveyor if they deem the physical monuments must be set to define the new boundary. I had done a little reading online and there are state laws that dictate surveyors discretion. And I don't want to contradict a surveyors discretion. I also believe that they're licensed.

To raise point the majority of them are the ones doing the BLA. So I just I feel like it would be very helpful to give them the discretion and it would also save thousands of dollars to the applicants if they don't think a survey is needed. That was a lot of words to repeat. No, you just read it. Okay. What are your thoughts, Scott? I mean you've been here a long time. Rafe, would you like to read the note to the class?

It's question for him. Sorry. Statement.

So I can understand trying to work up some language like that, but I also think the discretion for that out out arrest finally with the director. And so that's where having a staff consultation might be helpful. We can encourage a staff consultation. That's money back if you move forward with the project.

So we would we would treat this as an exemption then to be approved by the director.

Could. If if a case is is is made by the professional.

I guess the only problem I have with that is we're not double checking a surveyor's work because they're a licensed professional, and that means that RAIF is double checking their work.

So do you recall the exhibit that showed a lot line going like this and then high up and then down low like this? And it was it was a third iteration in the manipulation where it would have been a nightmare to try and find your own lot line. That's an example where we'd say, you gotta you gotta set some pins for that. There's no way a landowner is gonna be able to find their lot lines given that example, given that BLA, which was a clear distortion of the intent to BLA. In that kind of situation or other odd shaped lots situations, you might wanna say it's in the best interest of the landowner to be able to locate their lot lines.

And providing a meet and balance description means nothing to a lot of people that aren't in the surveying world or don't touch on it. But telling them that they could look at a survey or a map and see if if they can find their corner monument, maybe it's up against the roadway, and they go 200 feet along the roadway, they can find a new pin that was sent as part of a new lot line that went north off that right away. That those are that's an example or some examples of where you might wanna have discretion on a on a director through an exemption process.

So you could add to any amendment unless the property line follows an extremely unusual pattern? Because I'm assuming that that example that you're providing isn't something that happens commonly.

We get a lot of unusual. Well, I would hesitate to characterize as that 40% or 30% or 50%. I really don't know. But we do get a lot of odd shaped configurations. And some are pretty straightforward. They're just turning a lot line 90 degrees. Others are not.

Well, 62 of the 69 came prepared by a surveyor. So Yeah. Not a lot come without.

But that includes the ones that I just mentioned, the one that looked like this for two parcels. That was prepared by a surveyor. I'm just saying that we would wanna be careful in in making decisions like this. That, you know, maybe you have a landowner that says, got $500. What can you do for me? You know, it would be a disservice to move forward on

that.

And I'm not suggesting anything unethical. I'm just suggesting that maybe the quality of work, like some of the examples we've seen, might not be there. And might not be there for both staff and the landowner.

Commissioner Nelson's online. He's a commoner or a question for us.

Oh, thank you. I I think to just for for Ryan's point, I I can definitely see how that reads to part of the survey map, as far as their interpretation of, like, needing a MILR or record a survey. And, again, on a lot of times, they are able to just use a BLA exhibit if they're able to do it by legal description. So is there just back to that verbiage component, is there a way to add just it being an exhibit and let them determine if they have to set a PIN, again, already governed by laws and regulations and their, you know, their oath to the LSAR that they must provide a record of survey. So being able to just have it as an exhibit versus a full survey map.

Yeah. And and I can sort of speak to, if you want examples of other jurisdictions in Pierce County. So if we're looking nearby, always requires a survey for a BLA. Snohomish only requires a quote map suitable for recording as a baseline, but they do require a survey if involves more than two lots and other complex BLAs. So just as a kind of to compare a couple neighboring jurisdictions on what they do.

I I appreciate that. I think there's also, in this county and in other counties, you know, there's almost to also Scott's Point, sometimes the the lines are obviously hard to find. Also, monuments are hard to find. You know, they didn't stake I mean, rebar and pins and caps have been around a long time, but there's a lot of these parcels that were originally platted in even in this south end of the county in nineteen o eight, and they're, you know, the the pins are either negligible or have been buried and, for them to go find them and set them. You know, they're again, those surveyors are already governed by, not this code, but their own oath that they must obviously record that.

But there are again, I think there are many times, especially for noncomplex BLAs, that they're able to do a legal description and, you know, be able to do an exhibit without and map it out without having to actually go and do a field survey to, commissioner Wixson's point.

Where would something of the like be written in the code? Required documents is at the end, but it wouldn't go there. Go ahead.

As far as what it's for an application?

If if we were to give a surveyor discretion to determine if a field survey was necessary or not Yeah. Where would something like that go in the code?

I I think it would go here as far as what is required to be recorded. And if it's in what's required to be recorded, then we would also review that as part of our process. So something like Snohomish, if you wanted, if you proposed to go from survey map signed and stamped by the surveyor to a map suitable for recording, that would give a little bit of leniency as far as maybe if you just turn the lines from vertical to horizontal, you could probably do that yourself by hiring a surveyor. Now I'm not sure how and I'd have to talk to Snohomish on how they define quote suitable for recording, but that would give a little bit more leniency.

Would changing the word just to exhibit map also give that leniency?

Yes, but once again you would I mean I could have my kid draw an exhibit map and so are there certain I think why Snohomish says suitable for recording that comes with some sort of some sort of assumed Mhmm. Quality, if you will.

Mhmm. Because I think that when you record different documents with the auditor, there's also different costs associated with those documents.

The cost is a flat fee for the first page which is a think about, don't quote me on this, about $305 and then each additional page is like a dollar 29. So the moat 99.5% of the cost is on

the first page that you record.

I have a quick question of clarification. I thought that if you had a survey map, a previous survey map already done, that a surveyor has the option of not doing a full survey, just taking that map, making the adjustment, and so you didn't pay for a full survey, you just paid for the survey map to literally just be redrawn. And so when it says survey map signed and stamped, I was thinking that for many people, they could use a survey map that already exists. They aren't paying for a full survey, but they're still getting a sign stamped map. Is that correct or not?

That's correct.

What's the willingness of a surveyor to reference the work of another if they have to guarantee it?

I don't know for sure, but I know that I've Was had people do

there, I know that you had reached out to the survey community, Were these items brought up to them for review prior to incorporating into the matrix? And what was their feedback on this one?

So I will just say the last time I met with a couple surveyors that was that meeting was requested by the Kitsap Builders Association. This verbiage was in there and there was no comments on that verbiage.

The answer to the former question is it's done all the time where somebody else's survey is used as a basis.

And I met with our county surveyor last week and went over the proposed changes in this draft code here, and he didn't have any suggestions regarding the Section K in particular.

Thank you.

Do you have a sense of what the willingness of a surveyor is to reference the work of another?

I don't generally sense that they have issues with that. Perhaps they find some discrepancy and they can correct that. But we have lots of surveyors who've done work and previous survey was no longer around. And so it's got to be used unless somebody is willing to pay for a resurvey, which I don't find to be that option that often. That's my sense.

I suggest if you want to make a motion,

do it. I'm just not sure what the verbiage should be or where it should be. When I first before I was even with the Planning Commission, I came to a meeting and I got a little bit of trouble with Carrie. I asked, her, well, you did a survey, you did a BLA, would you do it again, you know. I left that meeting and I thought, there's a BLA, maybe I'd like to do it, maybe I'd like to gain a little more experience for it.

When I read a legal description, I get confused. I'm not opposed to having a surveyor even be required to do the BLA. That's not mentioned in this code either. My main thinking is the difference between a BLA hiring a surveyor and requiring a survey as part of it are vastly different costs, especially on properties that are large or have a lot of topography. A field survey could cost thousands and thousands of dollars.

Not the trees with leaves.

So I don't know what the wording should be if anything, but giving them discretion to determine if a field survey is required or not is just kind of something I think should be included.

I'm not I don't see where like, I don't see where you're seeing that the where this sentence survey map signed is saying that that needs a field survey. I guess that's where I'm confused.

Is a field survey required to do a BLA?

No.

What kind

survey are you what's the title of the type of survey that you guys will be requiring with every BLA application that will be on the checklist?

So if you I'm not familiar with the names that surveyors may call, but if you are familiar, if you remember all the examples of the surveys that we provided in exhibits, that's what we would be looking for.

Okay. So not a field survey, but another kind of survey. And is there going to be on the checklist like gross detail as exactly what type of survey you're going to be looking for? Remember, this has to be make sense to the common person as well. And so is because if I just read a survey is required and I might go out and hire a surveyor and pay $2,500 because I just read survey was part of my checklist and then come to find out after the fact that wasn't.

So just trying to bring it down to common language and having it be just completely clear and understandable, I think, would be pertinent here. Because there's even amongst the commission in this conversation, there's a lack of clarity. And that's you know what I mean? I can't even imagine when it's just on a form, which we're not able to see, by the way. We can't see this checklist. We don't know what's actually gonna be on it, just what we're discussing, which is tough. Right? We're trying to make decisions on this code. We don't have the whole story from DCD on it. So how do we is that the plan to have gross detail on the checklist? How are we going to bridge that gap with the public as a whole?

So I think part of the answer is situational. Think somebody earlier mentioned, you know, what about the lots that are that predate any survey law? Let's say they're 80 years old and you're trying to do a BLA on that. Does it make sense at that point? I think the person who spoke to that also mentioned that you may have no evidence of where that lot actually exists today. Does it make sense to show where that lot actually exists today through a BLA?

And that's I'm sorry to contradict that but I feel like when was Kitsap County founded? It the eighteen hundreds? People have been surveying lots in Kitsap County for a long time. So if you're suggesting that significant amount of lots aren't surveyed and have no monuments in proximity to them, that's

There are quite a few like that. We have lots of legacy lots that weren't staked out that way. Quite a few. Manchester and Indianola are the most prominent areas where you'd

see that.

So if we added verbiage saying a recorded survey would only need to be required at the discretion of the surveyor and they made a mistake, that would be on them. They're the licensed professional, right?

Yes. I guess my question is, would you want during for that BLA of those, let's call them legacy lots, would you want to be able to show the landowner where their lot line is?

Of course. And the parcel search does that for every parcel as far as I'm aware.

But it doesn't show you where

your pin is on that? No, it doesn't show you where your pin is.

Yeah. Think if you wanted like for purposes of marking off a fence line or a setback, you want to know where that new property line is that was just established by BLA.

And that's a several thousand dollar difference in a BLA?

I'm not suggesting that you have to record new perimeters. The perimeters, let's say, in my example, the perimeters have stayed the same. You're using that as your basis of the new BLA. You're using the existing meets and bounds for that, but you're vacating one lot line and you're establishing another. In that situation, and I'll try to be clear, that new lot line would be the only surveying task associated with on the ground work.

If I could just ask a question. So just kind of going just wanting to just kind of recalibrate a little bit. There were 69 BLAs done in 2025. 62 of the 69 had a surveyor participate in that process.

So here's what I will say. Okay. I only looked for the map and the stamp associated with that map. So I didn't look if it didn't have the map. So maybe I'm misrepresenting at least 62 of the 69 use of surveyor because I did a quick I was just doing a quick scan of each one of them and I would see the stamp of the surveyor at the bottom of it with the map associated with it.

So there were seven that only included the legal descriptions of themselves and I did not go deeper to see if there was actually a there was no stamp on those. So I'm assuming they weren't done by the survey because there was no stamp associated with those legal tax descriptions or those legal descriptions, but 62 had stamps and signatures.

Okay. And then of the 69 total of twenty twenty five, how many were created a nonconforming lot issues with sales? Do you guys have a quantification of that?

I did not go into detail on that. Was one of the examples we used was so obvious that it created issues that we use that in the recent example, but I did not it would have taken a pretty heavy lift to go into each one of them and do a review. We would have done a full zoning review and see and you're talking we're already proposing to allocate four hours per these. I don't think it will take that long, but I would have to do two eighty hours worth of work to figure that out.

So what's driving this? If you had 62 of the 69 had surveyors, I would imagine those must have done proper. If not, the folks can go back to those surveyors or if they weren't done proper, then maybe it's a bigger issue than surveyors if surveyors are making mistakes. Is this a what's driving this? Is it a bad lot issue? Is it a complaint from the community issue? Like what is actually pushing this forward if if almost 90% of all applicants currently are using surveys surveyors? What what where's this? I guess I'm not understanding what this is being born from.

All the examples that we showed you use surveyors. The exhibits that we showed you that had illegal lots Mhmm. Use surveyors.

So what would requiring a surveyor now change if it's not been successful in the past with those that are voluntarily using surveyors? I guess I'm not understanding the difference.

It provides us with our review capability. So the survey allows us to review the resulting lot better than if we

But you're not double checking a surveyor's work. So what would you catch that a licensed surveyor would do you see what I'm going I guess I'm just I'm completely not understanding what what would be the difference between almost 90% of your applicants are utilizing a surveyor. And if they're still inaccurate with a surveyor, what would requiring a surveyor and you're double checking a surveyor's work, what would that change for Kitsap County?

We're not double checking the surveyor's work. We're just utilizing the surveyor's work. A lot of the survey maps include a lot of information on there that if you just are looking at the legal descriptions that doesn't include that information.

Okay.

And if I can add, probably the biggest single offense in these BLAs that we're not reviewing today is creating non performing lots. I'm sorry, creating illegal lots. They don't meet the dimensional requirements of Title 17 that they meet the lot size of the zone they're in and lot width and depth. So that's probably one of the biggest offenses that we see if we group these together. The exhibits that you saw, those were not all of the exhibits we could have used, but those were the most recent sampling of exhibits sorry, BLAs that we had concerns with in the last few years.

We didn't go back very far. When we looked at this in 2011, we had probably 60 exhibits that we pulled out then and those were pretty extreme. They jumped over roads and had time lines being reconfigured to create additional lots. The other thing that we're seeing, and I think it's important and underlooked is, we're seeing that a lot of these BLAs, a fair amount, are introducing new lots to the rural land supply. And that runs counter to what GMA was intended to accomplish, which was protecting our rural areas.

And so we see constantly, not a lot, but consistently, new lots are introduced to rural areas and the county doesn't have any control over that. This would allow us to have control over that in a much more solid way.

Is it like a lot of lots a year, one lot a year, 10 lots a year, 50 In lots a

2019, it was a 150 with

Okay.

Remember that exhibit? Mhmm. That was a full on subdivision without One

prop one developer. Sure. Okay. That was one developer. Okay.

Manchester, they had they had another developer come in and do 13 lots inside the Lambert that was

Was that one developer as well?

That was one developer.

Okay. So this is not 150 issues. This is one developer creating 150 issues under their umbrella. So this is so that's these numbers are important for actual clarity and reality here is we're not having a 150 problems within 2011. You have one developer that's circumnavigating your system and you're trying to create code in a way that everyone has to adhere, that's kind of almost a reaction to some of these developers that have taken advantage of Kitsap County's lax or nonexistent code. I can appreciate that for sure.

And continuing to do so.

And they're continuing to do so and I can appreciate that. I guess I'm just I'm not quite understanding what what is gonna change now that you're requiring a surveyor to participate if you're having I would hope that that developer had a surveyor participate with them because they're about to short plot out and go that way. But if the surveyors are giving bad information or they're not giving proper advice currently, what's going to change tomorrow once this code's in effect? Are you gonna it's still a civil issue between the landowner and the surveyor that they hired today, just like it will be tomorrow if this code move forward. So what's I the

think what you're I think I can what you're asking is the surveyor did not like, in the examples we gave, they did not provide incorrect data. It's just that because my our department is the only department that reviews for zoning compatibility, that's not the right word, that they were able to record it because no one is reviewing it for the zoning that it meets zoning descriptions. So the first time that we are reviewing it is when an applicant then comes in and says, I'd like to build on my parcel I built. And then we have to tell them, I'm sorry, that you cannot because that parcel you built is illegal. So there's nothing that there was nothing illegal about what was what's currently being done.

Nothing illegal is what is the surveyor, the applicant is recording the BLA. There's nothing that they're doing that is illegal. So I want to make sure that that's clear that we are not saying what the surveyors are currently doing is illegal. But there is a loophole in our system that allows for the creation of an illegal lot that then when you go to build on it, that's when we catch it because that's the first time we're seeing these lots come to us. I hope I'm answering your question. So

just as a clarification, my understanding is that a surveyor does not when they if I ask them to do something, then they will put that on the piece of paper, go out and survey it, make sure that legally it's on the piece of paper, but not legally buildable. That isn't something that they are checking for, nor do they have to check for that. And so my understanding of what this code is doing is giving the county a time to double check for a building

site.

Yeah, so that we can build on that site versus it's not that any surveyor is doing something wrong because a surveyor is just literally surveying land and we're them to survey the land and whatever the owner says, that's what they're gonna do. And so this is that double check. It is my understanding.

It's largely that and to make sure the lot conforms to the zone.

Right. Which is again part of that double check both the build ability making sure that

Yeah.

Those are

You can put a building on your piece of property.

But Kitsap County is not guaranteeing that the lot is buildable through the BLA process. Correct?

Correct. Correct. Because because we heard from the community that that would that the critical areas piece of that review would cost a lot of money because you would have to provide

all And couldn't that be type one.

Yeah. A lot of other stuff. I

just wanted to point out also that the survey map is not a change to the existing code. The change is on the review period.

Scott, so regardless of if someone should want to know where their lines are, it's not required as part of this code that an applicant have a field survey done. Correct?

It's not required.

So in f, it says applicants are encouraged to be aware of the declaration of aggregation program the county provides. So before f at the end of let's see. Review criteria e. If we went to the end of e and said applicants are encouraged to be aware, a recorded survey shall only be required at the discretion of the surveyor if they deem physical monuments must be set to define the new boundary. The reason I'm suggesting that isn't because somebody may or may not want to know where their lines are.

It's just I'm trying to be explicitly clear to the applicant that they know they don't have to have a surveyor a survey unless the surveyor tells them they need to because they're the licensed professional and have the professional liability for screwing up.

If I may, then maybe I'll completely screw up this example. But when somebody is trying to build a house, we ask for the architectural designs. We don't say just describe with words what your house is gonna look like, right? That building site, that architectural design provides a picture's worth a thousand words, right? So I think if I use that an example, the fact that we're actually asking for a map provides a very simplistic review so that our timeline to review those is not drawn out as we're trying to because we're going to have to go in and pin those points of that new BLA into some sort of map, right?

We're going have to figure out the area to make sure it conforms to the size. So I know that's maybe a little extreme, right? It's clearly like that's a much more detailed drawing of an architectural design of a house. But that's sort of where we're going with having to not just have words on paper but actually drawing that out.

In Kay, on the last page of the document, to your point earlier that we had made when we were discussing, If the verbiage I'm not creating a I'm not at this point asking for amendment or anything. I'm just asking. If we were to say documents with the county auditor, including a recordable survey or exhibit map. Would that maybe provide that it's a little more clear that a survey is not required depending on if the surveyor deems it. Go ahead.

I feel like you're concerned about the cost of the survey is like the primary impact on the person. In my opinion, it feels like the survey is providing them the documentation of what they're trying to accomplish. And from what I hear from Scott is sometimes it may if the field survey isn't required, they may just need to draw a line a different way and present a fairly simple map, which wouldn't be an extraordinary cost.

Correct. Okay. I just wanna be explicitly clear to people that because if I read this document and the way I read it, I read it like I need to do a survey when I read a survey map. And Scott's point earlier was if you change the pins, they should they should be shown on the survey map. That is a field survey. Where if you're just moving the pins five feet for a fence, that could be easily put in the legal description and shown on a map, but wouldn't require a survey. So that's the part that saves thousands of dollars to an applicant, but still shows on a map what has been changed so that it's easy to understand.

And so what I understood was that that line that is drawn is stamped by a surveyor, but wouldn't be an extraordinary cost.

A field survey is a definite different cost than showing it on an

exhibit But you're

saying don't need

a field survey.

Yeah. That's what we're saying. We don't it's not required, but if we're not explicitly telling someone it's not required, maybe they I

don't see that it's explicitly saying that it is required.

Including the survey map signed and stamped by the surveyor.

But they're saying it doesn't need to be a field survey map. It can just be a survey map. That's not

If you haven't you know what, I wish we could hear from a surveyor. Unfortunately, we're not at that point because we're through that process. So at this point, if somebody misinterprets the code, it could cost them thousands of dollars. I know that some people might need to know where their lines are, but a lot of people are selling for the financial reason of needing their money. So then you say, well, before you sell, you've got an I live on five acres.