Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the June 2nd, 2026 meeting of the Kitsap County Planning Commission. Thank you to everyone that is able to join us this evening. Before we begin this evening's proceedings, I'd like to remind everyone that this is an official meeting of the Kitsap County Planning Commission conducted in accordance with the Washington State Open Public Meetings Act and Robert's Rules of Order. We ask that all attendees remain respectful throughout the proceedings. Please refrain from any behavior that may make it difficult for others to hear or follow the discussion. 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 a break. And so sorry, any planning commissioner may call for order and the chair may call for a break. Thank you for helping us maintain a courteous, respectful, and professional environment. The first item on the agenda is introductions. I'd like to start online. Commissioner Vliet, would you like to start us?

David Vliet, North Kitsap.

Jane Fenner, Central Kitsap.

Thank you. Kathy Meisenberg, North Kitsap.

Ryan Wixon, Central Kitsap.

Ashley Hall, South Kitsap.

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

Caleb Nelson, South Kitsap.

All right. The next item on our agenda is our meeting protocol. Please silence all electronic devices during the meeting. If you're attending in person, please refrain from having conversations with other attendees or staff during the meeting. If you wish to provide comments, please wait until the general public comment period. We offer four methods 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. For our virtual attendees, please 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. For our call-in attendees, please press star nine on your phone keypad to signal that you wish to comment. The last four digits of your phone number will be announced and you'll be connected. You may need to press star six to unmute your line. Written comments and testimony, please provide written comments made that may be submitted to staff or emailed to cjule at Kitsap.gov by 2 p.m. on the day prior to the meeting. Please include the meeting date, your name, the agenda item, and or subject you're addressing. Submitted comments will be entered into the record at the appropriate time. For all speakers, please state your name and the general area in which you live. Comments are normally limited to two minutes for general public comment period and three minutes for public hearing comments. These time limits may be adjusted by the chair when appropriate. The next item on our agenda is the adoption of the agenda. Do I hear a motion to adopt the agenda?

I move to adopt today's agenda, June 2nd, 2026.

All second.

Are there any corrections or additions to the agenda? All right. Seeing none, all in favor, raise your hand. All right. Unanimous. All in favor? The motion carries. The next item on our agenda is the adoption of the previous meeting's minutes. Do I hear a motion to adopt the meeting minutes from the May 19, 2026 meeting?

I move to adopt the minutes from the May 19 Planning Commission meeting.

I'll second.

And do I have any amendments to the meeting minutes? Seeing none, all in favor, raise your hand. All right. Looks like it's unanimous. The motion carries. All right. We are now coming into our first general public comment period. Do we have anyone wishing to speak? I see none in the room. Do I have anybody online wishing to speak? I do. Mr. Palmer? Mr. Palmer? Mr. Palmer?

Thank you, I comments are somewhat brief tonight. I note that. later in your agenda you're doing a work study and administrative code edits and i would like staff to distinguish in their presentation between things that are minor in nature versus the things that should go to public hearing for example there was a director's interpretation in march of 2020 that you should have gone to public hearing because it really changed the code dramatically pertinent to urban areas I'm looking at the code edit for the cell towers and there's a couple of aspects of that that appear to be more than just an administrative edit so i'd like staff to address triggers just administrative edits versus some things that should be considered a public hearing a public hearing That's it.

All right. Thank you so much for your comment, Mr. Palmer. All right. Seeing no more online and none in the room, we'll be closing our first general public comment period. The next item on our agenda is a work study. with Jason Walsh, DCD planner, and it's for the open space application. Forgive me if I butcher this, but I believe it's Falcone and Nagley. Okay. I apologize. Please take it away, Jason.

Pardon me for a second while I set up screen sharing for the presentation. Okay. Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Jason Robert Walsh and I'm a planner with Kitsap County Department of Community Development and tonight I'm presenting an open space application number 26 tax 00056 for Falcone-Nagel requested by applicants Joseph Falcone and Lucia Nagel regarding a current use tax exemption for open space in Kitsap County 18.12 and RCW 84.34. The request is to transfer 14 of 15.12 acres, currently classified as undeveloped land and single-family residence, by the assessor to current use open space. The reclassification is for tax purposes only and does not change the zoning of the property. Properties that qualify for current use open space must have at least two sensitive resources as listed in Kitsap County Code 18.12. Here is a Kitsap County Commissioner district map. The red arrow shows the approximate area within District 1 at the address of 257 Northwest 2 Crane Lane. in Paulsbo. The cross streets are 2 Crane Lane and Highway 3. The parcel numbers are 342701-1-039-2007 and 342701-1-002-006. The combined acreage of these two parcels is 15.12 acres. This vicinity map shows the property's proximity to Highway 3 and Hood Canal. The critical areas map indicates a fish-bearing stream, also known as a type F stream, hydric soils, a freshwater forested shrub wetland, and some steep slopes. If commissioners later would like me to indicate which features are which, I can do so at that time. The subject properties are zoned rural residential with a density requirement of one dwelling unit per five acres. The adjacent parcels to the north, east, west, and south are also zoned rural residential. The surrounding land is used primarily for single family homes to the north, south, and west, and manufactured home real property to the east. The request for reclassification, again, is for tax purposes only and does not change the zoning of these properties. This is a 2021 aerial photo of the site. And this is a 1994 aerial photo of the site. This land is determined eligible for open space classification under the qualification criteria set forth by the State of Washington Open Space Act, Chapter 84.34, Revised Code of Washington, and the Kitsap County Open Space Plan, Chapter 18.12 in the Kitsap County Code. with two high priority resources being wetlands, ponds, streams, and watersheds, one medium priority resource being a secondary stream buffer, and two low priority resources being the preservation of visual quality and steep slopes. Therefore, the Falcone-Nagel application request has been found eligible for a 50% reduction to the land value, Currently, the property owners do not choose to allow public access or the public access option in exchange for an additional 10% tax reduction. Upon the Planning Commission recommendation, the Board of County Commissioners will have final approval. That is all for my slides. If there are any questions, I am open to those at this point in time.

Commissioner Vliet.

Yes, I see that. Thanks for that presentation. I was looking at that. I was doing some research online at this address and there's something called meadow hawk sanctuary there. It looks like it's a tree house bed and breakfast or something. And so I just didn't know if that was on the parcel of land where the house was and if it's permitted.

So at the time of the site visit to confirm the presence of the required or unnecessary resources, we made note of the treehouse, but the conversation with the applicants was that the treehouse was a feature that had been built prior to their ownership of the property or properties, and that the treehouse was used for office space, relaxing, et cetera, that it wasn't necessarily a functioning rental. So that is something that thank you, Commissioner, for bringing that to our attention, because prior to this meeting, I was unaware that it was listed online as a rental unit. The property itself, as you can see in this project site plan, this area that is indicated by black lining, which is in the southeastern portion of the property, that is the section of property set aside for single-family residents. That is not the section that will be included in the current use change, which will allow for or permits the tax shift. If there actually is a rental on the property, Airbnb, what have you, And it happens to be within that black sectioned area, that area that is reserved for single family residents. It is permissible. They would obviously have to have had a permit for the construction of that unit. I would have to do additional research to determine whether or not that's the case. If the unit was outside of that designated area for single-family residents, it would be not allowed. There is the possibility of exploring updating the conditions of approval for this permit to ensure that any rental units that are on the property be within that designated area for single-family residents if it is not it is found to not be within that designated area then they would have to make adjustments to the application thus reducing potentially reducing the available acreage for the tax shift

Okay, thank you. Because I, I saw on 1 of the 1 of the stipulations is that there wouldn't be camping on the property to get this kind of tax reduction. So it's, it seems it seems kind of different to me that there's an actual, but it sounds like it that the tenants are saying, or the owners are saying they are not renting out the Airbnb currently.

Yes, and you're correct, Commissioner, that any property that is designated as current use open space, it is not permissible to have camping or other kinds of temporary, short-term, or long-term residing on that section or that acreage.

Okay, thank you.

Do I have any other questions or comments for Jason? Oh, please go ahead.

I just need some clarity. Are both of those parcels going to open space?

Yes, both of those parcels are part of the open space application. The section in black is the area that is going to be reserved for their single family residents. It will not be designated as current use open space, but all of the acreage outside of it will be.

And is that area that is designated for residential, is that going to be a different tax?

Yes. They will continue to be taxed at single-family residence current use rate.

But is it part of the same tax parcel number?

It is, yes. But the tax shift itself is broken out, and I can actually show you. It's in the staff report, but I'll show you the slides. So just one moment.

Thank you.

They're hidden for the presentation just in case you all didn't want to see all this stuff, but one moment. So here what you'll see is that the parcel labeled 342701-1-039-2007, that is the parcel where the single family residence section is designated. It's a little challenging to see, obviously, in this presentation. But the assessor's office breaks out the area taxation by acreage and its associated use. So within the staff report, it's easier to actually read this particular tax shift document. But what you'll see is the designation that is open space has its own specific rate. And then the area that is for single family residents has a separate rate. But it's all under one tax bill.

maybe minor, but what was the eight inch PVC pipe going to? Did you guys investigate that?

Yeah. So when we did our site visit, in the southwestern portion of the property that we're currently looking at, there was an 8-inch green PVC pipe that extended about 50 feet into the applicant's property coming from the neighbor to the south's property. So the neighbor to the south had – we did not look into the actual permitted actions of the neighbor. We just simply assessed what we could see on the ground. And what we saw on the ground was clearing, gravel, and the pipe itself connected to the section of clearing that had gravel laid over it for what appeared to be a driveway. And so that PVC pipe itself was taking what appeared to be stormwater runoff from that adjacent parcel and pumping it into the subject parcels. And that specific area that we're talking about is where we have, and I'll back up in the slideshow so you can see what I'm referring to here. Appreciate your patience. So here you'll see that area that looks like it's kind of like a blue with maybe a scrub brush kind of pattern on top of it. That is the designated Department of Natural Resources National Wetland Inventory wetland. And the PVC pipe is pumping directly into that area. So hence the condition of approval that that be removed because it directly impacts those high value resources that qualify them for the open space designation.

And that pipe wasn't tied to anything that was permitted from the county from the other parcel?

There isn't a standing permit for that, no.

Okay. So they essentially just need to go cut it at their property line, remove it as far as a condition?

To be quite frank, it is a civil matter. They will have to actually speak with the resident and property owner to the south to negotiate the removal of that. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, of course.

Commissioner Fenner?

Yes, thank you. If this is designated in fact, would this be in perpetuity? And if not, what are the conditions under which it would be pulled out of this protection?

The minimum designation period is 10 years. If there is removal or a request to remove the parcels from that designation, there are back taxes and penalties to be paid. After that 10-year time frame, it is an automatic extension unless the applicant chooses to remove the subject parcels from the current use open space designation.

So would back taxes be due at the end of 10 years if pulled out of it?

No. If they, after 10 years, if they choose to no longer have those properties designated as open space, there is no penalty and no back taxes to be paid. They have to meet the minimum of 10 years, though.

I see. Thank you.

Okay. Wonderful. Any other comments or questions for Jason and the work study? All right. Seeing none, we are now going to move into our public hearing, Jason. And so the next item on our agenda is to formally open the public hearing for the open space application 26-00056 for Falcone and Nagley. I'm slowly getting there. Seeing no commenters in the room, I'd like to go online. And I'm seeing none online as well. All right. Seeing no comments, I'm going to formally close the public testimony portion of this public hearing and formally close the public hearing.

Thank you.

Thank you. That was almost as great as the sewer code updates. All right. So then our next portion of our meeting we'll be moving into is deliberations. Do I hear a motion to formally open deliberations regarding the open space application?

I formally request open deliberations.

I'll second. Beautiful. Is that OK?

Yeah. But yeah, I think so.

Yes. A motion to open deliberations? Yes. Thank you.

I'll second.

Beautiful. Thank you so much, Clara. All right. Deliberations are open. My fellow planning commissioners, does anyone have anything they'd like to discuss around what was presented today? Any questions for Jason or anything that was?

I do have one more. It doesn't necessarily explicitly state, but does this run with the title of the property? Should they sell? Or does this run just with the designation stays with the properties?

Gotcha. Okay.

All right. Go ahead, please.

So back to the question that was asked previously about the permitting. Do we need to look into that before we continue or?

Meaning the permitting for the pipe? The treehouse. The treehouse. No. What we do need to know is its location. We need to know whether or not it's within the designated area that is for single family residents or if it's in the area designated for open space use.

And when do we find that out?

Like I said, since I found that out this evening, I will be talking to the applicant thusly.

Okay. I have a quick question for you. Do you know off the top of your head how long they've owned this property?

The current residents, I believe, have owned this now for four years.

For four years?

Yeah.

Okay. Wonderful. And then follow-up question.

Yeah.

Let's say everything goes forward today, and let's say it's found out. maybe in the process that that is in fact a income generating rental for them. What does that, is it just stop the process totally or does this whole thing undo it? Like let's say we're six months down the road and you're somehow the county is made aware. Does it just undo itself and then the back taxes for that period are owed or so their taxes are not impacted until the next fiscal year.

So not until 2027. So, If it happens prior to 2027, there wouldn't be necessarily any tax benefit that they would have been able to have reaped because of their application being approved. However, if after that they are found to be in violation of any aspect of the approval criterion, so for example, if that high-valued resource actually is no longer there or they are camping or they have something that is akin to single-family residence outside of the designated area, then that would be revoked.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. Fantastic. Thank you. Please.

The property with the treehouse looks like it was purchased in 2015. The other property was in 2020. Okay. Just that matters. No, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Wonderful. Do we have any more comments or questions for Jason? Oh, please go ahead.

Would that be code enforcement then that would be involved in looking into that?

Looking into the permitting for the treehouse? Actually, we can do that. If it is found that there isn't a permit on file, then we can have our conversations directly with court enforcement, we being current planning.

Yeah, just just a little bit of clarification from staff and I'm not the rule follower guy so don't point me at that but I Don't think that it's in quasi judicial manners appropriate for us to do outside research on matters Maybe you have something to say about that. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to give us the facts and then we make that determination and

Yes, so there is a nexus when it comes to the review process. And so the nexus in this instance is to check whether or not the resources, the high value, medium value, low value resources that qualify for open space designation are present. And that the individual property, if it has single family residences on it, that it designates at least a minimum of one acre for that residence. Those requirements were met.

I just want to make sure we're deliberating what we're supposed to so none of us see any repercussions from the conversation tonight.

That is accurate, yes. So there wasn't necessarily a nexus found between the, in this instance, the treehouse and the application. So that portion of it was not pursued. There was no further research done into it. Yeah.

Commissioner Fenner.

Yeah, so I have a question. Do I understand correctly that if this were designated as such, a protected area, that the tax currently paid on this site would be shifted pro rata, apportion it to the rest of the taxpayers in the same way that a property that is a for-profit retail building is then later occupied by a non-profit organization. So the non-profit has a non-tax status and then the property tax that was owed as a private entity is no longer because it's a non-profit and then

shifted to the rest of the taxpayers of the counties is that analogous your analogy i cannot speak specifically to as it pertains to a for-profit then transitioning over to a non-profit occupancy however i can say that yes it is a shift pro rata so it is just redistributed amongst other county taxpayers

And the rationale for doing so is in the name of preservation, where if it were not so designated that it increases the likelihood that that preservation could be removed, it's not preserved because it's built on? Correct. Thank you. Of course.

All right. Do we have any more comments or questions for deliberations? All right. Seeing that...

I just thought of another one.

Oh, go ahead, Commissioner Fenner. I apologize.

Have you looked into the buildability of this site? In other words, if it's got wetlands, if it's got setbacks that prohibit its buildability today, what is it really preserving if it's already effectively preserved? But if it's buildable, if you've determined that there is potential for its development, then it would be preservation in fact by putting it in the status, right?

I believe that is a deeper conversation perhaps beyond this particular meeting, but I would say that to the evaluation of the permit's eligibility or the applicant's and their proposal's eligibility, it is looking at the qualification or the qualifying criteria. And in this instance, we do not look at whether or not we're making an assessment or a feasibility analysis of the developability of the site. Say, for further single family residents or commercial operations, we do not take those factors into account when making when conducting the review.

Okay, so it could. An investigation be not buildable in which case we're giving away a tax subsidy that. We will be benefiting from already. We would be benefiting from the green space with or without the tax exemption because it's not buildable anyway.

One could potentially come to that conclusion.

That outcome is possible. Okay.

All right. Do you have any other further comments or questions for deliberations on this open space application?

Yeah, one more. I think that there could be a valid question to what Commissioner Fenner raised, but this isn't a debate about the code that exists that allows us to have someone voluntarily place their property into a temporary conservation. This is just a question as to if they went through all the steps that the county requires to place it into that type of conservation. So I think that the specific nuances surrounding the code itself should be reserved for a separate conversation potentially.

Thank you, Commissioner Wixson. All right, anything further? All right, do I hear a motion to

DO WE HEAR A MOTION TO APPROVE OR DENY THIS?

DO WE HEAR A MOTION TO APPROVE OR DENY THIS OPEN SPACE APPLICATION? SORRY, LET ME READ THIS. DO WE HEAR A MOTION TO APPROVE OR DENY THE OPEN SPACE APPLICATION 26-00056?

I'd like to make a motion to approve or deny.

Yeah, make sure you say, are you making a motion to approve it? Yes. OK. Yes. Yeah, do you mind restating that motion? Yeah, thank you. I second.

DO I HAVE ANY AMENDMENTS OR CHANGES TO THE DELIBERATIONS TO THIS OPEN SPACE APPLICATION?

ALL RIGHT. HEARING NONE, ALL THOSE IN FAVOR, PLEASE RAISE YOUR HAND AND SAY AYE. ALL THOSE OPPOSED? SEEING ONE OPPOSED, THE MAJORITY TAKES IT. THE MOTION CARRIES. THE OPEN SPACE APPLICATION WILL MOVE FORWARD. AND NOW WE'LL BE MOVING INTO FINDINGS OF FACT. SO SORRY, JASON. THANK YOU FOR STRUGGLING THROUGH THIS WITH ME. I REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR GRACE. ALL RIGHT. DO I HEAR A MOTION TO APPROVE THE FINDINGS OF FACT REGARDING THIS OPEN SPACE APPLICATION 26-00056?

I MOTION TO MOVE TO FINDING OF FACTS FOR THIS APPLICATION. TO APPROVE IT.

And do I hear a second?

A second.

All right. Do we have any amendments or changes to the findings of fact as presented? All right. Seeing none, all those in favor of approving finding a fact, please raise your hand and say aye. UNANIMOUS. SO THE MOTION CARRIES. ALL RIGHT. WONDERFUL. THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH. JASON, I REALLY APPRECIATE IT. THANK YOU. YEAH, YOU TOO. THANK YOU SO MUCH. ENJOY THE SUNSHINE. ALL RIGHT. THE NEXT ITEM ON OUR AGENDA IS A BRIEFING ON THE STATE LEGISLATIVE UPDATES BY HEATHER CLEVELAND, OUR DCD LONG RANGE PLANNER. HI, HEATHER. And Garrett. So sorry, and Garrett. I think that's my second time in a row, Garrett. I'm so sorry.

No worries.

We'll give a moment for the presentation to come on the screen. OK, good evening, planning commissioners. My name is Heather Cleveland. I'm a long range planner with Kitsap County Department of Community Development. And I'll be presenting with my colleague, Garrett Blue. And this is meant to be an overview of the legislative process and most recently some updates. And I will be referring to my notes because it's a complicated process. At least it can seem like that sometimes. So bear with me. So I'll cover today an introduction to the legislative process, or an introduction in general, going over the legislative process and resources, recent bills that have passed and their impact, the 2026 legislative session, and looking ahead. And this is not meant to cover all bills, but just a highlight of some of them to, again, give a sense of what's happening. So state legislature.

Legislature. Oh, there's an echo.

It's like, I'll keep going, but just note that I hear it. It might. So there are there, there are two year sessions. We are currently in the 2025 and 2026 session, which that portion of the session ended, uh, just recently in odd number years. So 2025 level legislature passes, um, three budgets operating capital and transportation. which together makes up the state's budget for the next two years. And also, this is where bills are proposed, passed, and become law or do not pass. State regulations, so the Revised Code of Washington, also known as RCW, is a list of the current state laws. This includes laws that the legislature passed and the governor signed, as well as laws that voters passed during elections. The Washington Administrative Code, also known as the WAC, is a list of current state rules. State agencies create rules based on the authority they receive from state laws. So that's how those two are related. For example, the Growth Management Act is codified under RCW Chapter 36.70A, while the WAC with the rules is WAC 365-196. This provides the procedural framework for adopting the comprehensive plan and development regulations under the GMA.

Under the GMA. Okay.

And then the Kitsap County Department of Community Development, what is our role in this? So in Washington, state law sets the framework for governance and rights while local jurisdictions implement and tailor rules to local needs. Understanding that both are essential for legal compliance and for knowing where the legal remedy lies. So I will say in my experience, there's times when folks from the community chat with me and it may not be a local rule, it might be a state rule, and I will often communicate what the case may be. And then local laws must conform to state statutes and the Washington Constitution, and state laws can override local laws if there is a conflict, especially in areas where state statutes explicitly preempt local regulations. So preemption is a word that you'll often hear. If something passes at the state level, it will preempt our local rules if they are different. So then long-range planning. So we update the comprehensive plan, as you all know, and the planning commission is part of that process for us. We also update and create development regulations, also a process that involves the planning commission. And then throughout the year, we also do legislative evaluation. So we're trying to keep track on what's happening, what's there, what are we advocating for, and then also what do we have to react to.

Okay.

It's like hot in here and it's echoing. Check, check. Check.

You sound totally normal up here. Okay, you can't hear the echoing? No. Okay. Maybe I just have bad hearing, but I think you sound great.

Okay, so I'm not going to worry about it, but just so you know I can hear it, so it's a little distracting. Yeah, so sorry. You're going to have to suffer over there. That's okay. Yeah, I'll be okay. I'll be okay, everybody.

Yeah, you guys.

Right? I'm going mad. Okay, so I'm going to scoot you along here. So the legislative process, and I've got to get water. So pre-filed bills, so pre-filed bills are proposals for new laws or amendments to existing laws that legislators submit before the official start of a legislative session. Filing a bill early allows lawmakers to prepare for the limited time available during the session, especially in even-numbered years, such as this one, when the Washington State Legislature has only 60 days to pass legislation. So it's something, there's a specific pre-filed bill page where folks can pay attention to what's coming up.

What's coming up.

There are long and short sessions. Under the Washington Constitution, the legislature meets in Olympia for a legislative session every year beginning the second Monday in January. In odd number of years, so last year, the legislative session was 105 days, also known as a long session. Also, the budget is a part of that, so it's a big part of the discussions. And then in even-numbered years, so this year, the legislative session is 60 days, so also known as a short session, which this year just ended recently in March. Also committees and hearings. So there are a significant number of committees that are topic-specific. An example, so there's some House committees, there's Senate committees, and then also joint committees. So an example of a joint committee is a joint transportation committee, which involves both. And then some examples that we often pay attention to what's going on where there's a hearing in the committee is the house housing committee and the house local government committee. They often have topics that pertain to us in long range planning. And then also they have the same committees but different members in the Senate Housing Committee and Senate Local Government Committee. Committee meetings are open to the public with an opportunity to testify. So this is an opportunity for staff or for Kitsap County to also testify if we have thoughts on a bill that would impact Kitsap County. Committees consider issues and bills relating to areas listed in the committee description, so housing or local government, as I described earlier. And then if the bill has fiscal implications, it is also reviewed by the House Appropriations or Senate Ways and Means Committee. And I will say this past year with our budget that this has been a significant part of the review with respect to the bills that have been proposed. The committee can pass, reject, or take no action on a bill. And passed bills are sent to the Rules Committee, which schedules them for the floor debate. And the House and the Senate. So once on the floor of the House of Representatives, which is known as the lower chamber, or the Senate, which is known as the upper chamber, the full chamber debates the bill, may propose amendments, and votes on it. If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber where it undergoes a similar committee review, floor debate, and vote. If the second chamber amends the bill, it returns to the original chamber for concurrence. So I will say when bills are proposed and if they're not proposed together, you know, as... at the same time are similar, which they could be very different, this could be a significant back and forth between bills, and it's something that also we watch. Both chambers must approve the bill in identical form, which can be the tricky part, before it proceeds. Authors and sponsors. So in Washington State, authors are the legislators who introduce a bill, while sponsors are who co-sponsor it, often to support its passage. So again, when we're looking at bills and hundreds of bills might be proposed, we can hone in perhaps on the number of sponsors on a bill. It kind of signifies the amount of traction maybe a bill has by showing the amount of support that it has. And also, this can be used when you're looking to see who is sponsoring a bill. This can be used, whether it's a state representative or a state senator, to connect on a particular bill or note, like I said earlier, note the number of sponsors. So it's a way to connect who supports this. Can you tell us more about this? It's a way to, I guess, involve in a conversation. And then the governor. So only bills that pass committee hearings and floor votes in both chambers can advance to the governor for signature. So this is a significant process on purpose. I think it's around 20% of bills that are introduced actually get passed. It's quite a rigorous process for a bill to pass. The governor has three options, sign the bill into law, allow it to become law without a signature, or veto it. If the governor neither signs nor returns the bill within five days, Sundays excluded, while the legislature is still in session, the bill becomes a law automatically as if it had been signed. And this does happen from time to time or people do note when something hasn't been signed and know that it will be enacted. An override of a veto requires a two-thirds vote of the members present in each chamber, so that's also another option. Here's a list of some resources. I believe I included a number of these in the attachment to the executive summary. So the Washington Legislature website is an excellent resource. It can be intimidating, like you don't even know what you're looking for, so how do you begin? But when you have a bill number, whether it's a House bill or a Senate bill, just make sure you're looking in the right year. You can enter that number. And the resource that I really like to use within that is the bill analysis tool. I find it difficult sometimes to read bill and understand, like, what does this mean? The analysis will talk about what's the origin of this, what will this impact, and it gives a great, I guess, narrative to what the bill is all about. Also, the Washington State Association of Counties, WASAC, is another great resource. I included the 2026 legislative update from WASAC where they talked about what was approved, what wasn't approved, and the impacts on it. That's another great resource. Not only is it a great resource to look for the website, but it's also a great resource for long-range planning and Department of Community Development. The Washington American Planning Association is another great resource. They have a legislative committee that meets every week while the legislative session is in session, but also when it's outside of session to talk about what's next and how can we be proactive. The Puget Sound Regional Council also does their own analysis. And then finally, another great resource is the Municipal Research and Service Center, also known as MRSC, also is a great resource. I would say especially once a bill has passed, they do great work. analyses and overview of what this means for the state of Washington and the counties and jurisdictions that these bills impact. So some recent bills that have passed and their impact and I'll kind of gloss over this a little bit because if you have any follow-up questions happy to answer them, but just want to show that several bills that were passed in the 2021-2022 session, so several sessions ago, The first one that we are still working on is the housing and GMA. So that was effective as of July 25, 2021, and it impacted our comprehensive plan process and project, not just ours but throughout the state. So essentially what it did is support emergency shelters and housing through local planning and development regulations. It amended RCW 36.78.070, as I mentioned earlier. That's GMA. and specifically the housing element statute. And it also updated WAC 36-196 to strengthen housing planning requirements. So essentially this is where we went from looking at employment and population to now also looking at housing. And not only looking at housing, but looking at affordable housing within that. House Bill 1337, it updated Kitsap County Code 17.415.010. So I will say between these two, this is an example of where it can influence our actions and our outputs, for example, our comprehensive plan, or this requires us to update our code. So this one was specifically related to accessory dwelling units and required... fully planning cities and counties to allow two ADUs on all residential lots that allow single-family homes within an urban growth area with some limitations. So that was a big change for Kitsap County. And I will say not only did the state move forward with that and then Kitsap County, but now we have pre-approved plans for ADUs. So this is all around encouraging more housing opportunities in Kitsap County. And then House Bill 1241. Again, this is from 2021 to 2022. So this is a requirement anticipating Washington Department of Commerce guidelines. We're anticipating that hopefully in July, the more progress will be made. But what this requires is a progress report on the comprehensive plan, which is required every five years and for us that will be due in 2029 so you think oh wow that's you know hasn't that always been required it hasn't so this is something that's new and what you'll see coming out of long-range planning with respect to this is collaboration with Human Services and presenting about for example our progress on our housing targets that we that are within our comp plan And then we have a presentation coming up on July 21st relating just to exactly that. That particular bill also changed, and these things impact our future. The bill also changed the comprehensive plan periodic update and shoreline master plan cycles from 8 years to 10 years. So our next comprehensive plan will be in 2034. 2034. Senate Bill 1615, so a more recent one. So this impacted residential parking. So at minimum, Kitsap County has already updated through our administrative code update last year, removing it was previously said one garage, and now that requirement was removed because any enclosed and enclosed could count towards that. That was something that the development community had been advocating for, and that was changed through the administrative code update. But as we're always continuing to look at this, and I would say another example with this particular one and another parking bill that I'll mention in a moment is we're looking, some bills apply only to cities and some apply to counties as well, and we're always looking to see what is that line between the two because there's a difference. And those are mandated. So we're required to, and sometimes you might hear us say unfunded mandates. So sometimes more work can be required and we're trying to figure out how to make it work with the same resources. And the next one is an example of an optional bill. So this is House Bill 1331 that was passed in 2021-2022 session. So this allows exemptions for low-income housing and other development activities with broad public purposes, including early learning facilities from impact fees. So the county is continuing to assess this, but anything that removes revenue is something that has to be thoroughly assessed to how does that impact our budget at Kitsap County. So this is a brief overview of our recent session, so 2025-2026. So Senate Bill 5184, that one passed. So we're working right now to determine how that impacts Kitsap County, and Garrett will be speaking that in some more detail. Senate Bill 5471 and House Bill 1840, and then I'll also mention the next one, House Bill 2269, both are impacting Lammards. All of this is around housing. And so what the first one did was allow an increase in density in Lammards up to four plexes, but only if it was connected to public housing. sewer or public wastewater. The second one, this one that was passed in 2025 and then in 2026, it allowed to include connection to large septic systems. I think what this is doing is removing barriers and allowing density for where infrastructure is already in place. already in place. I guess, again, to look at urban growth area boundaries and ways to increase housing opportunities, I guess, especially in our rural areas. House Bill 1494 is related to multifamily tax exemption. So this one specifically allowed The opportunity for Kitsap County to consider this. So this is optional, and we're actively looking at this for how this could apply for Silverdale. But again, whenever it comes to shifting taxes, it's something that we have to look at really closely and see how does that work for Kitsap County. Also, special purpose districts is another thing to consider with this particular one. And then Senate Bill 5509 and House Bill 1212. And I'll say when there are companion bills like this, it often implies there's a collaboration between the two and it moves forward. It has good traction. It's been an indicator to me. Like this is moving forward. There's an agreement. But this one is specifically about citing child care centers. It only applies to cities, but I had mentioned earlier we did a child care code update during the year of the rural, and so we took what was intended for only cities and applied that essentially to counties, allowing outright child care centers and in-home daycares in almost all zones in Kitsap County. So that's an example of something passing that applies to cities, but we took that and applied it, but it happened to be a coincidence, but also because child care is a crisis and a priority for Kitsap County. Here are some bills that didn't pass, and you'll see in later priorities, these continue to be discussed, and I listed these ones specifically because the conversation's not over, even though they didn't pass. So House Bill 2201 is about UGA standards. So this bill would require county regulations within a UGA to conform to the comprehensive plan and regulations of the city in that UGA at the county's next plan update or implementation progress report. So this didn't pass, so I won't, but the idea was is the difference, you know, in UGAs and city standards versus county standards, and how are we moving forward with that? And what I'll say, my observation of this particular bill is although it didn't move forward, and I wouldn't say didn't move very far, it struck up significant conversations throughout the state of Washington in how we plan for growth and how... UGAs, whether they're associated with a city or not associated with a city, what are the steps for annexation or incorporation, and how are those services paid for? And I guess taking a look at after 30 years, close to 30 years since the Growth Management Act passed, how can we maybe look closer at what the intention was of that? to be continued. House Bill 1254, related to Wildland Urban Interface Code, also known as WUI. So this one continues to come up. This would require Washington to adopt and enforce the full International Wildland Urban Interface Code statewide, along with creating new wildlife hazard and base level wildfire risk maps. A proposed compromise in this bill would allow local governments to adopt the code in whole or in part with optional technical provisions for areas that have completed their own maps. So I think that was something that was agreeable. But I would say something that continues to be of concern, and this is what I'm hearing, And a positive fire risk reduction, but also may impact properties that fall into those zones. How does that impact those properties? Also, unfunded mandates. So to adopt this and to go through the work, how will that be managed? And then also, at times, conflict perhaps with things such as a tree canopy code. Tree canopy code. And the next one is Senate Bill 5633 and Companion Bill HB1818 related to subdivisions. This is one that's also about housing. There's a couple different ways and a couple different bills that were proposed. But one example of this is increasing the threshold for short plats. And I think the concern is... So what they're hoping to get out of this is to reduce the process or reduce the, I guess the burden for the process of subdivisions, but also at the same time what it could do is reduce public participation opportunities. But this one is going to continue to be a conversation. And then finally, House Bill 2616, Agriculture, also known as the Washington State Farm Bill. This is something which I'm grateful for, that the Kitsap County Agriculture Advisory Council is going to take on and keep their finger on the pulse of. And also counties throughout Kitsap are discussing this particular bill. And I would say it very much relates to economic viability of farms and acknowledging the loss of farmland in the state of Washington. And with that, I'm going to shift it over to Garrett, who will kind of explain a little bit more when something passes, how we start to do our analysis of a particular bill and how it impacts Kitsap County.

All right. Thank you, Heather. For the record, Garrett Ballou, long-range planner with DCD. And something that we've been doing recently has been taking a look at these recent legislations that have passed and trying to prioritize what we want to take on next as we look at them from a bird's-eye view and see what's most important, what's something that we really need to focus on. And one of these that's risen towards the top of our list has been parking. And so there are several pieces of legislation that impact parking and some of them are already in effect and some of them will be in effect here shortly within the next year and some of them even sooner than that and so we've been evaluating what may be necessary to change in our code with some code updates. There are some other avenues that we could take a look at as well. And primarily the most impactful bill that impacts parking right now is Senate Bill 5184. And this has quite a few implications on our parking requirements. So how many spaces we can require for different types of development. And so Essentially, there's parking allowances in our code right now for certain types of development. You can have a single family residence. with two parking spaces required. Maybe commercial space has a certain amount of parking spaces required based on the size and the footprint of the structure. And this piece of legislation changes those requirements quite a bit in some cases. And for some uses, it actually eliminates our ability to require parking altogether. And so that's something that we're taking a look at and analyzing as a part of this project. And so you can see up there, parking provides parking allowance limits for a variety of use types and limits off-street parking for commercial uses. I've got a few notable changes here written down from this bill. One of them, for example, is that counties can't require more than half of a parking space for multifamily units or one space for single-family residences. And so that would be a reduction from what we're currently requiring new developments to provide for their parking spaces. And these are on-site spaces, so this would include your garage, your driveways. It would not include street parking. So this is all talking about on-site parking, parking that's on the parcel itself. It also has a provision in the bill for no spaces can be required for residences that are 1,200 square feet or less. So this would be another piece for us to consider taking a look at our parking code. and it also requires two parking spaces per 1,000 square feet of commercial space, which is a change from what we have. And notably, it notes that if a commercial building is below 3,000 square feet, no parking spaces would be required at all for that. So you can see there are certain uses where parking is limited quite a bit through this bill, and so that's something that we're going to be taking a look at. And there's A few different options for us as we dive into this project. So one of them is to study and adopt parking requirements from the bill, which we've already begun to do kind of an analysis of where we have gaps in our code versus what this bill is bringing forth. And so one of the options is just to take a look and adopt what the bill is saying that the new requirements are going to be. Alternatively, in some other jurisdictions nearby, including a city of Tacoma off the top of my head, have repealed parking requirements altogether. And that would be removing that section essentially from our code or at least the requirements. So we wouldn't have any spots required for a single family residence. It would just be market driven at that point. An additional option that is listed within this bill is that if there's a safety concern specifically associated with street parking, so if it's an area that's really tightly packed and having a lot more street parking, if developers aren't building parking with these units, if there's no requirement, If that could potentially pose a safety risk, a parking study can be prepared and that can be sent to Commerce for them to evaluate. And then going forward, there's a discussion about which of these requirements should apply to your jurisdiction. This is all really new. I believe the City of Spokane Valley has done that approach and sent a parking study to Commerce. They haven't sent it out yet, but they're working on it. I think it's about a $100,000 study to put that together. And so that's an avenue that we could take a look at if we think that additional street parking could be a safety issue in certain areas. And there's more to this as well, and some additional research needs to be done for sure. We really just scratched the surface. Yeah, Ashley.

Ashley, just a quick question. Mm-hmm. Is there a caveat in Senate Bill 5184 in consideration for being transit-oriented? Or is this just no matter where you are, a developer can have their own discretion? Like, the city of Bremerton has, like, really interesting code around parking, you know? And so I was just curious, because that seems like a – that's a wide –

Yeah, yes, there are I can't remember if it's the Senate bill itself, but I know that the other pieces of legislation up there do specifically Have different requirements for when you're within a certain distance from a transit stop And so I'd have to take another look at the at the bill to see what it has there but I know I have written down here for the other change, which is for the Growth Management Act, specifically that RCW 3670A535. So for co-living, which is a use like a boarding house or something like that. We cannot require parking for those uses if they're within a half mile of a major transit stop. So that type of language is prevalent throughout these pieces of legislation. But I can double check in that bill and provide those pieces for you.

Yeah, truly just curious just because we're not, unfortunately we're not like kind like with Tacoma where they are heavily transit oriented, you know, and they're just, they're built out to support that model. And so just kind of curious just the way we're structured, how that's integrated. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a great question. It's definitely location-based, so for certain developments that are closer to transit stops, they may have different parking requirements from those that are not within that radius. And so it's something we'll be taking a look at and implementing as we look into code changes for this stuff. But I'll make a note of that.

Thank you so much. Sorry to break up your presentation.

I have a question as well, Garrett, about the parking.

Yeah, Ryan, go ahead.

Is there any subsection of either law that allows counties to have any sort of deviance from the law itself based on their own characteristics that they have?

Right. So I think that's where that parking study comes into play if we wanted to take a look at that for making a case for the safety aspect of this, the public safety. And that's because you could have a lot of parking along the streets and view blockage, people pulling out of the right of ways, those types of things. But again, we don't really know quite what that looks like, and there aren't any examples out there at this time. That being said, there's also a provision within the bill that discusses areas of county roads that may not be up to the standards of cities within that county, having potentially some different requirements or not having to follow everything quite the same. And so that's something we need to evaluate and also discuss with public works if we have anything like that. WHERE MAYBE CERTAIN AREAS WOULDN'T NECESSARILY HAVE TO COMPLY WITH IT ONE-TO-ONE, BUT THAT'S A GREAT QUESTION, AND IT'S SOMETHING WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO LOOK INTO. So I believe that covers kind of an overview of Senate Bill 5184. Those other two pieces down there are adjustments or changes to the Growth Management Act and modifying how parking is considered for residential development. And so this is another couple of pieces that have changed recently that we're evaluating within our code. Specifically, 3678-535 is for that co-living use that I had mentioned earlier, specifically like boarding houses. That's how we define it in our code. So if those are within half mile of major transit stops, we cannot require parking for any of these new developments. And if they're further out from those transit stops, this legislation allows us to require no more than a quarter parking space. per unit for those. That other adjustment or the other new legislation that impacts the GMA allows us to, or excuse me, means that we cannot require enclosed spaces and I believe Heather already spoke to part of that and that was changed in the last administrative code update that No longer requiring garages as one of the parking spaces, so that has been done recently. It also notes that existing gravel parking spaces, if they're legally existing, up to six of those can be used for new developments. If you're required to have a certain amount of parking for new development and you've already got existing gravel that's legally existing, you can use six of those spaces without having to bring them up to... parking standards or other standards, but maybe entitled 12 with stormwater and all of that. Um, and, and that also means that, excuse me, that section, uh, specifies that we cannot require more than 20 foot long parking spots. And in our parking table, um, currently we require 23 feet for parallel parking spots. So that's another piece that would need to be adjusted. That's what I've got in my notes. There are definitely a lot more changes than what I have here. I pulled out some of the highlights. And again, we're taking a look at all of our code updates or potential code updates right now and evaluating what we want to take on next. And this is very well maybe one of those. So you might see this here in the coming months. And with that, I'll pass it over to Heather to continue along with the presentation. Or actually, are there any questions first regarding the parking? Yes, Caleb.

Senate bill for 5184 states it's 18 months after enactment, which was July 25, so it would be January-ish of 27. Yeah, and so some of these... Are you going to just enact it now, or what's the...

Right. So we have to develop the code first. And some of this legislation that has come out is retroactive. So some of it is actually currently superseding what we have in code. That's why it's at the top of our list. We need to start developing this and moving it forward because we don't want what we have to conflict with new state legislation. And so, yes, to your point, that's going to be taken on here shortly.

So if there's... Just for sake of the argument, if there's potential development coming in and they are proposing some of these new parking and their break ground date is not until after this is supposed to be enacted, is that going to be considered or are they going to be held to the standards that are current for Kitsap County?

Typically with new projects, they're vested to whatever the code was when they came in for the permit. I may be wrong there. I might need to double check on that. But I'm thinking back to some other projects, and I believe that's how it happened. Sure, yeah, typically vested.

I'm curious if that's going to be a consideration if they're going to build commercial or they're going to build residential, is that this parking requirement is new. Changing, yeah. Yeah. Or how is that told to developers that have seen this and don't maybe know the 18 month deadline?

Yeah, and part of what we've been discussing is that since this is already, it's now passed, is creating a memo or some kind of a document for our current planners to have. So even if the code hasn't changed quite yet, if that new parking legislation is effective, they can have that information available when they're reviewing these and so that we're not holding projects to something that's no longer what we need to require. Okay, thank you.

Any other questions for Garrett before we move back to Heather? All right, see you then. Thanks, Garrett.

Thank you.

Okay, I just have a final slide, and this is what's looking ahead. So these are the priorities that were also discussed with WASAC, and I will say based on the conversation that I've been in with APA Washington and WASAC, these continue to be discussed. UGA reform, so I think the UGAs and annexation and incorporation continues to be a discussion topic. Probably not changes immediately, but I think it's future changes will be coming. Agritourism, the Department of Commerce published a report recently about agritourism having some model code. I think this is also related to economic viability, but also with land use compatibility. So again, this is something that was submitted to the Agriculture Advisory Council to keep to review and give their feedback on as it relates to Kitsap County. Lambert reform, in addition to what I was talking about earlier about increasing density with allowing fourplexes, even allowing the connection with large septic systems, I think there's also discussion on Lammards as it relates to UGAs and what could that look like. And again, this is looking to the future. Subdivisions will continue and housing will continue to be part of the conversation. And then finally, water. I just wanted to read this. So Governor Ferguson and the Department of Ecology launched an initiative to foster water supply solutions amid statewide drought. So water continues to be a conversation in eastern Washington, but it also is in western Washington as And I think it will continue to be a conversation at the state level and local level. And happy to answer any other questions about the legislative process or the specific work that Garrett's doing.

Any questions, please?

So thank you for this. I personally and professionally feel your pain with code and legislative changes. Professionally, I'm that point person in public works that has to deal with all of those and implement them, so kudos to you. One of the items that I can relate with the frustrations is by the time you implement the codes, go through all the red tape, process, change policies, procedures, they turn around and change it again. So it's frustrating. With that being said, how does DCD decide the prioritization of those codes that are coming through that are classified as optional or just passed? I understand that you utilize other outside agencies, collaborations with local units and fellow planning agencies and whatnot with other local agencies but how do you do that internally is it staff working with management to prioritize those optional and past items I'm just trying to understand how the prioritization happens internally for those items that are crossing as far as legislative changes

It's constant, and it's a list, and it's many conversations. And I will also say it's because we only have so much time, so we're always trying to prioritize. And will a memo be sufficient, or is this something we've got to dig into? So we're really, I think, staff discussing with leadership what's going to move forward next. Also, it connects with the commissioner's priorities. and what they're looking into. So I would say it's a process that continues to evolve. And, yeah, what you see coming in the next couple months or what you see is, like, based on this. And I think, too, to the point that you made, yeah, it's ever-changing. So we might have to be reactive to something. But, yeah, we track it. We try to understand the best that we can. We try to split out what's impacting counties versus cities. And, again, like I mentioned earlier, WASAC is a great resource APA Washington is a great resource. And then also I think colleague-to-colleague connection of like, has this impacted you? What's your interpretation of this? And like Garrett had mentioned, doing research on who has done XYZ moving forward and thinking, how does this impact us and what should we do? So I think the short answer is lists and continued conversation, and it always evolves.

So what I hear you say is that you all focus more on the mandated items, obviously. That's correct. And then you go into the items that were noted as being past or optional and you pivot slightly to those items as time allows or as it coincides with the BOCC's focus.

in plans that's fair and i'll also say that just as garrett had mentioned if the state preempts something it's already been done so that's just something to note it's it's already there we don't have to try to pass that so there's something to lean on as it relates to that thank you you're welcome do we have any other questions or comments for heather garrett

I would just like to echo that, and that's a pretty daunting task to keep up with every year, and I appreciate your efforts.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you both so much. We appreciate your time. Thank you, everyone. Yeah. All right. The next and final item on our agenda is a work study on our 2026 administrative code updates by April Glassman, DCD Loan Range Planner. Take it away, April.

evening.

Get my screen shared here. Nope, it didn't go. Try again. Ah, there it is. all right good evening commissioners my name is april gasman long range planner with dcd and today i'm here for a work study on the 2026 administrative code update so dcd does its best to update code annually these edits are intended to be non-substantive there's no nothing supposed to significantly change the meaning of the code So therefore, these edits are meant to go quickly through this process. The overall objectives of this year's code edits is to eliminate or reduce conflicting provisions of code. add clarity to existing sections of code without changing the meaning or intent of the language, create more predictability and certainty in development standards and the permit review process, create an efficient system to catalog and organize previous and new code edits initiated by the county staff or the public, and to codify a couple director's interpretations. So an update on the timeline. I was saw you at the last meeting in the middle of May for a briefing. Since then we have sent out a public notice for SIPA for the DNS public comment period began yesterday for the process. Today I'm here with you guys. The draft ordinance has been published. The SIPA comment period will close on the 10th of this month. On the 16th, pretty sure it's the 16th, there will be a public hearing here with you all. In July, we're hoping for deliberations and finding a fact. In August and September, we'll start the Board of County Commissioners process, which will include a briefing and work study, and again, another public hearing, and along with the 60-day notice of intent to adopt with the hope of adoption in October 2026. Since I was with you a couple weeks ago, there has been some changes to the proposed administrative edits. We now have nine on this list and still the two directors and interpretations, which are on the next slide. Some of the code edits are new to you today, and we've had a couple that have dropped off just with consultation, with current planning, with leadership, and with one of the county attorneys. Just some of those things just to decided to drop off because they weren't a good fit for this type of process. A couple that we've added is adding co-living to the group living definition and then correcting grammar in the allowed use standards of club and places of worship. We also are adding a footnote reference to a table. Everything else is the same from last time. And then we've got those two directors' interpretations. The first one, the wireless communication facilities, and the second, replacement of certain non-conforming homes. So this first one, we already have another change to this one. So we want to add co-living to the definition of group living and just trying to figure out where co-living fits best. It will go up to actually line B, which is boarding house, rooming house, lodging house, and then the addition will be or co-living on that line. And this is a result of 2024 State House Bill 1998, which is allowing co-living where multifamily housing is permitted. So we're just adding that to the definition. We use boarding house as co-living right now, so it makes more sense to add that co-living to the boarding house line than dormitory as you see it here. Is there any questions on this proposed change?

I don't think so.

The next one is, um, adjusting the definition of multiple family to include side by side units. Um, so that multiple family housing isn't considered just vertical. We're considering it horizontal town homes, things like that. Three questions regarding this proposed change.

Commissioner Fenner?

Yes, where do townhomes fit in current code if they're not in the multifamily section?

So townhomes are considered actually single-family residential. I don't know if that was probably a good example. But what we did have is a – and what spawned this was that we had a fiveplex that we would know as – five units side by side, and they were trying to consider those single family. They weren't town homes as defined by Kitsap County Code or International Residential Code or Building Code, I guess it might be. But they needed clarity in order to move forward with their project, and so we felt that calling it multifamily because of the number of units was the best way to go. And they were side by side units. And they had tried to argue that they were single family residential. But then that sets aside a whole bunch of code that's designed for multifamily residential code.

Is there a trigger for the number of townhomes that categorize them in multifamily? Is it four homes? Is it three homes?

No, technically attached townhomes, which is what you would see, are not considered multifamily. They're attached single-family residential.

So currently you could have a duplex that looks like a townhome and it's single family. You could have a sixplex that's a townhome and it's designated single family. Is that right?

So a sixplex designated as single family, not by our definitions. Let me pull those up.

So what's the trigger in number of homes that sets it as duplex?

So once you break above a triplex, then it's treated as a commercial structure. A triplex. Yeah.

And so does this proposal now label a triplex instead of being single-family, side-by-side, multifamily?

Let me see if I can help with the answer on that. Can we circle back to this one while I get some of your answers prepared?

First, thank you.

Please. So what is the definition of how many people associate to a family?

I don't believe we have a definition of family. I know that some jurisdictions have. Let me look for that as well.

The reason why I ask is because you were just talking about multifamily and the co-living definition. But then co-living, is that defined as two people? Could be?

I can answer that easier than I can the other. Co-living housing means a residential development with sleeping units that are independently rented and lockable and provide living and sleeping space. And residents share kitchen facilities with other sleeping units in the building. Other names for these include congregate living facilities, single room occupancy, rooming house, boarding house, lodging house, and residential suites.

So could there be co-living within a multifamily unit?

Not as I understand co-living units to be. And the definition of a family is two or more persons customarily living together as a single housekeeping unit and using common cooking facilities as distinguished from a group occupying a hotel, club, boarding or lodging house or other group living. And that's the definition of family.

OK. When we were speaking about co-living and the multi-family description, and then we go to multiple family, meaning a building or portion thereof containing three or more dwelling units constructed with units above, and designed for occupancy by three or more families, I'm just trying to understand where co-living coincides with multiple family.

Co-living will go under the definition of group living, which is excluded from the definition of family.

Okay. But can you have that in multifamily units? Co-living?

No. Think of like it's real similar to like a lodging house or a boarding house where you have your room, but then you share all the other common facilities.

Okay. So co-living doesn't associate to multifamily. Right.

Okay, so multiple family, the definition of that is a building or portion area containing three or more dwelling units constructed with units above other units and designed for occupancy by three or more families. And so what this is simply doing is allowing for that change from above other units to also side-by-side units. So instead of a vertical threeplex, you could have a horizontal threeplex. And I'll have to look at some other housing types. Let's see.

So the current code would say three units stacked floors one, two, and three are multifamily. And of course, four units, one, two, and three, and four are multifamily. And two units stacked one and two are not multifamily. But what? Single family?

Duplex. So it has a specific definition.

So is that under the single family category?

Yeah, let me get to the definition of that so I don't misspeak. Duplex means a building on a single lot containing two dwelling units and designed for occupancy by not more than two families. It's a very specific definition.

Okay. I think I understand. Thanks for the clarification.

for the good of the whole, it's like a point of order. We're actually just discussing the addition of strictly those five words right there to this code. We're not discussing the semantics of existing definitions of families and things of that nature.

That's correct. But I will admit that a discussion of multifamily where you have multiple units, which usually in layperson speak means two or more units, right, it is confusing and it's confusing for even staff that does intake on some of these as to what they're properly called. And there has been discussion about, well, This is an attached three townhome setup. Is it a triplex or is it a townhome? And by definition, that's related to building codes. It becomes a townhome. So there's the envelope space, all of that, that I think somewhat matters, but which I'm not the expert on.

Okay. I just want to make sure that we're sticking to the nature of the work study today. Okay. Beautiful. Do we have any other questions around this particular item, multiple family definition for April or Scott? Go ahead.

So those townhouses, whether they're three, five, six, seven, that are all one and side by side, should the developer or the property owner go through a condominium survey and make them individual, would they be exempt from... the meaning of side-by-side units and still be considered single family?

If they condomized, I don't know if I have the answer to that. My understanding is that they still would be, but there's been new condo laws that may have shaken that up a bit. So I'd have to look.

Because they're essentially, yeah, to my understanding, they'd be individual. They're individual properties or individual units sharing a common wall.

Yeah, the unit lot division.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Let me just see if I can find one more definition. We have a lot of definitions. We do not have a definition for townhomes in our code.

All right. Are there any other questions or comments on this particular piece? All right. Seeing none. Thank you.

So the next proposal is correcting the grammar in the allowed use standards for club. I will say that the section of code is titled 17.415.115 club. It is under the allowed use standards chapter or section of code. And so in reading this, it was a little ambiguous and awkward. So we're proposing this grammatical change to this section of code.

I'm wondering if it would make sense to add a director's interpretation to this to allow for variances where it makes sense on parcels that can't meet those setbacks. Specifically, like an example, that could be a park. If you're going to build a gazebo on a lake property that the park has and you have to keep to a buffer, I'm just not sure if there should be a director's interpretation because it seems pretty concrete. There's director's interpretations on other buffers and setbacks, like the industrial code where it's a 100-foot buffer unless the director approves a landscaping plan which allows a 50-foot buffer. So I'm not sure if there's any room for a director's interpretation in this or not, but just a question.

Not as proposed, because then we're not simply cleaning up grammar. We're getting into policy.

When, if any, time would be appropriate to address things like that, Scott?

Well, what we didn't hear earlier tonight is we have currently about 80 pieces of code stacked up. And so one of the things we're currently doing right now is trying to prioritize that code. And so what we're looking at really is housing and parking competing for each other because there's so many pieces of legislation that address parking as well as housing that we've got to get that out so people know what they're applying for. And we're not at risk of requiring something that they didn't need. So with that in front of us, we're probably looking at other changes next year. Sure. I just want to be honest and real about it. Maybe one of the things we could try and do is pepper in smaller changes with bigger packages, but I certainly don't want to dilute the principal objective of what's probably going to be housing or parking next.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Commissioner Fenner.

On that note, with respect to the previous slide, is that not falling under policy? Is that just cleaning up language, in fact?

MR. Yeah. That was basically cleaning up a need that was identified through a permit application where the argument was pretty simple that you can have side-by-side units that are vertical or horizontal. Sorry, you can have those horizontal side-by-side as well as vertical units. So it made sense not to exclude one versus the other. And you could argue that is a policy call, but it would be, I think, a very bad policy call to restrict one away from the other. So one of the objectives of our administrative codes is to make sure that they're not really controversial that they're easy to accept and understand. And if it doesn't pass that test, then what we want to do is pull it out because these are really meant to kind of go through quickly and through the board quickly as well by virtue of not being controversial.

Just a little clarification on director's interpretation. If that's policy, why are we adding it to the cell tower and mobile home codes?

Because our code on director's interpretation specifically says that it shall be considered at the next possible opportunity for code update.

So it could be put into this instance and not be considered policy?

We'd have to actually do a director's interpretation first. And then, so I'm not sure what that would actually look like at this point. And then we'd have to bring it back to the Planning Commission.

If there's not a need for it, I'm pretty neutral on it. I was just curious if that's something that you guys deliberated amongst yourselves.

We did not. And I'm not saying there's not a need for it. One could argue that maybe that blanket statement or at the director's discretion should be applied to a lot more situations regarding setbacks, right? So maybe there's more of an umbrella statement about that versus where we see it now in spots throughout Title 17. So I'm not suggesting there isn't a need for it, but The role for that would include first preparing that director's interpretation, publishing it to see if there's any input by the public, and then coming back to the Planning Commission at the next appropriate opportunity and saying, all right, let's consider this. We simply haven't done that. And this really has meant more to just clean up the grammar and make it more understandable.

Thank you for your explanation.

You're welcome.

All right. Do we have anything else for Scott or April around this topic? All right, seeing none.

So this is the exact same proposed grammar edit except for 17.145, or 17.415.395, places of worship under the allowed use standards section. Same exact proposal as the one you just saw. It's in the same section of code, or same chapter of code. Is there any questions along this one? For the next one, we want to add a footnote reference. to this table, the footnote is referenced lower down in the table. So that reference on urban low and UCR, I don't know that one. So they're referenced further down in the table that will be removed from further down the table and just moved up the table. And that footnote is for building permit applications for residential dwelling units on vacant lots over 18,000 square feet located in urban low residential and urban cluster residential zones. The maximum lot size shall not exceed 9,000 square feet. This restriction shall not apply if A, the net developable area of the existing parcel is less than 18,000 square feet or B, the project application will meet minimum density requirements as established by this chapter. So by moving the footnote reference to the top of the table, it sends the applicants down to this footnote earlier on so that they know exactly what they need to be doing. Is there any questions on this one?

Do we have any questions or comments on this section? Seeing none.

So the next proposed change is to remove the master planning chapter of code. The master planning code was originally developed for the area near the Bremerton Airport before it was annexed by the city. Since the code was developed, it has never been used. We have reached out to KBA and they've indicated that they have no issue with the removal of this chapter of code.

I do have a question. So I was reading that code and It says that it's used on a minimum size project of 40 gross acres. And I understand that that doesn't come up very frequently. But wouldn't it be better to have this code in existence if that did happen to ever come up? Because we don't know if somehow, somewhere in Kitsap County, that could become a thing.

So I can speak to that a little bit. We have another portion of code that we have in our title 17 we have performance-based development and historically that was something that was considered in urban areas but about I don't know eight years ago maybe 10 years ago that was that was changed to include usefulness in rural areas as April mentioned the master planning was originally developed probably like over 25 years ago in anticipation of what was called the South Kitsap Industrial Area being developed out by the airport. And probably within 10 years of that code being developed, it was annexed by the city of Bremerton and is now called the Puget Sound Industrial Center. So we have not seen this code in use since it was developed. We ran it by the KBA and Randall took it to its membership to see if they thought they would ever use it. They didn't see a need for it. But there certainly could be the argument that somebody might want to use this in the future. We just haven't seen it. The closest we've come to it is when Port Gamble did its development agreement and they called it master planning. And I think that's more likely what we would see in the future is a development agreement that kind of negotiates many of the things that you might see in both PVD and in master planning code.

I guess I am not understanding why it's necessary to remove it. Like how is it really causing any hurdles for anybody, but this way we at least have it in case we do need it. And it's a lot harder to put back later than to just have it in the code.

Sure. Part of the goal is to eliminate code that's not being used, deregulation and all that. So that's kind of the impetus for this. But I certainly could understand the argument of it's code that we should keep in case it is ever going to be used. The one thing that I will comment about that is we haven't looked at this code in a long time, and we haven't had to. So we're not even sure it makes sense as it's currently stationed in Title 17.

But I guess my view would be it's easier if we did need to look at it to revise it at that time than to add it back in. That's a lot harder ask when you have people say wanting to do this development and then we don't have, it's a lot easier for us to revise this code to help that development versus us not having any code to help control that development.

Yeah, I'm following you. And I guess that's a judgment call is whether we want to hang on to code that might not be used the next 25 years. But it could be used. Somebody might say, hey, I got an idea. I want to do a type 2 LAMRD maybe. And I'll want to use master planning code to do that.

Because I mean, master planning code has a very distinct use. And yes, it doesn't get used often. But when you do need it, it is a very helpful thing to have.

Yeah. And I think maybe what you're intuiting a little bit is other places do use master planning quite regularly. You will see it in a lot of development code.

That is true.

Yeah, for sure.

piggybacking off of that, I guess I was just curious why in other parts of the country like Arizona, for example, they do a whole lot of master planning. Our master plan code was designed for an industrial park, so maybe it's not as pertinent to residential development, but if that parcel size was changed from 40 acres to 10 acres, would it be used if language is updated to make it more residential friendly, would it be used? It speaks volumes to me that the KBA doesn't mind it going away. Right. And there's also been other large developments in Central Kitsap, like the one in the old gravel pit on Dickey Road that is far exceeds 40 acres, and they didn't opt to use it. So it's... Sure.

So what I can say to that is when you're looking at smaller, let's just say land divisions like what you're probably referring to in Arizona, quite often the requests we get are to modify lot size requirements, setback requirements, And a couple other requirements that are escaping my mind right now, but the performance-based development code we have right now does limit how many things you can ask for. And so you'd file that alongside your preliminary plat application. So that's what you would typically see in Kitsap where people are wanting some exceptions to the rules. For some of these larger things that you're talking about, like the Dickey-Pitt, that was a development agreement. That's where you get to come in and maybe use master planning as a template and say, I like what I'm seeing here. Or maybe you don't even need that. You just have an idea in mind, like what Port Gamble has done with their development agreement.

So on the subject of that, is it fair to say that master planning and development agreements both share the common principle of vesting a project, where performance-based development doesn't do as much to vest a project?

It does. Once it's a complete application filed with typically a preliminary plat of some sort, it's vested.

So is it fair to say that part of the reason, I've heard that there's some apprehension at the county level to go into development agreements because then they have to be held to that standard. Is there some reasoning beyond getting rid of the master planning so that there's less opportunity to be held to something that was agreed upon years ago?

No, there's no motive like that. Simply that it's code that has sat unused for at least 20 plus years, I can say. And this was an attempt to kind of clean up code by doing away with that chapter, that section. What we're seeing more people interested in is development agreements. That's what Arborwood was the one that kind of really caused a lot of people to be gun-shy, both with the county and outside of the county, about development agreements. So that when we talk about those in the future, and the board has expressed some interest in learning more about these, they won't have such open-ended periods. So Arborwood was 15 years, I think. And the board would like to see performance much quicker than that. They've, Arborwood went through one long recession and is now maybe tapping into another, who knows. But I think the board would be interested in development agreements that are ten years long with maybe one extension period of five years.

I think the two most powerful takeaways for me are that the Kitsap Builders Association doesn't object to its removal and that it's never been used since it was adopted. Those are pretty powerful statements. One last question. Is there a cost difference between a development agreement and using the master planning code to the applicant?

Well, that's a good question. We don't actually have a fee set aside for master planning, and I would guess that, well, For one, I know that then if you don't have a fee, it goes to an hourly rate, and I would guess that that hourly rate would exceed anything that you'd find with a performance-based development or development agreement. Thank you. You're welcome.

One second, Danielle. Sorry, Commissioner Vliet's been waiting so patiently. Commissioner Vliet?

Yes, just really briefly, I completely agree with everything Danielle said. I think she said it really well, and I would love to see us just leave it in the code. I don't

I don't oh I'll just say staff has no real heartburn about this one way or the other It's just because it's sad.

So would we how could we maybe take that this item off the list to have? And saying that maybe we bring it back up at another time when we do code. But I feel that it's a little bit past the small grammar situation that we're doing. And that I would like a little bit more time with this particular one to think about what we want to do with that.

Yeah. So as I mentioned earlier, where we talked about this code is meant to be kind of unanimous in its feelings, we clearly are not there. So I would agree with you. Take this off the table.

You don't want to put it up to a vote to the Commission for the amendment to see if the Commission is pro or opposed?

You can do that.

I was just questioning about potential process instead of removing it completely.

Yeah, I just was counting votes already and seeing that, again, one of the kind of the charter of this is that it be not controversial and easy to sail through. So it's really up to the Planning Commission what they want to do next with that.

Can you just briefly explain the difference, like the main difference between PBD and master planning? Yeah.

Let me help with that by going to code. Okay. So performance-based development allows you to modify a few things in your proposed development. It allows you to modify the lot size so that if you have, let's say you're doing a land division for a business park, and you have a minimum lot size required, which that's not a good example because I don't think there's minimum lot size in industrial, but residential, there's a minimum lot size, and you want to go lower than that, you could ask for that through this. You can modify your lot width and depth to go below the minimum required. You can modify your structure height to go above the maximum allowed, and that's only in urban growth areas. You can modify your setbacks. You can modify your parking requirements. And you can allow some use modification in residential zones and street modifications as well, so your street design. In exchange for doing that in the PBD code, you have to provide additional recreational space. So there's a tradeoff there. Usually what that means is more of a set-aside and a residential plat. And that's where we've seen these applied, for set-aside for tot lots and recreational space for the neighborhood. Otherwise, it's a much lower requirement if you just do a straight plat and not apply a PBD. So there is a tradeoff. With master planning, and I want to go there too. It's meant to, and I'll just read you the purpose statement because I think that would be very helpful. It's meant to provide for planning and assessing sites for a wide range of activities such as residential, commercial, and industrial. They're based on a larger area to provide more comprehensive view of the proposed uses and their impacts on surrounding properties. They're encouraged to use innovative development techniques to maximize open space and trail systems, enhance environmental protection, and minimize impervious surface and stormwater runoff. And development of master plans is also intended to ensure the availability of adequate capital facilities and infrastructure to support these uses and the adequate protection of environmental resources located in these areas. So one is a lot more basically just kind of ground up. Like, what is it you're contemplating you want to do? And then you're given sort of some very wide parameters with master planning, a minimum of 40 acres, 40 gross acres. There can be several parties involved in master planning. There can even be sub-area conceptual development in master planning. There's a different review process called out for master planning, which we would have to react to with a master plan application. And then there's some general things that master planning talks about, how you plan for land use, stormwater, and so on.

So, Scott, is it fair to say that the PBD gives the developer a little bit more flexibility in their project and their proposal of that versus what is written in master planning? Because I know a lot of developments personally right now that could have ventured down the path of master planning. So I'm just curious.

You know, one of the things that development and single-family homeowners or people who want to own single-family homes look for is predictability. And I think the PBD provides that very precise, prescriptive predictability that you don't necessarily see with master planning outright. But, again, I'll say that's not to suggest that maybe there isn't a use that we haven't contemplated that would occur in a larger space out there. It's just that we haven't seen it.

But master planning can also be used for large commercial projects. So if, say, a large commercial concept wanted to come to the county, the master plan would be something that would be very useful in helping understand what that plan was. And I understand that that may or may never happen, but we at least have some framework to possibly use if we ever were in that situation.

Yeah, I try and think about candidate sites for this, and really the only one that I can think of that meets the size requirement and is within a UGA, not that this says you have to be, but if you're not in a UGA, it's going to be much more difficult to maybe conceptualize and work through the approvals. But is the Dickey Pit industrial area that's currently being mined, not that's proposed for residential development, but that is currently being mined by Pyramid Material Holdings. So that's an example of maybe where you could come up with something very creative using the master planning process on that industrial site once it's reclaimed. Somebody could argue that maybe a development agreement might accomplish the same thing.

For our ability to move forward today, can we ask if we can all, if we could vote on postponing this and just pushing it, not saying yes or no on whether to delete it, but just take it out of this particular edit.

We're just doing a work study. We're not making any

What Scott had said earlier was that this isn't designed to be a controversial code update. So I think that if there's any question among the commission that something may be controversial, that it should just be tabled completely. And if it needs to be added back in in the future because DCD thinks that it should be there, maybe they could provide a little bit more information as to why in a more of a formal way. And then we could then adopt it back in. since it's not supposed to be controversial and it is a little bit.

I mean, another way to look at the bottom line here is it's not harming anybody for it to stay.

I just want to make a comment. Not that the KBA is representative of all that would be affected by this. They represent a whole lot. And those are the folks that would be taking part of this master plan or making the decision between the two. And that's a lot. It's not just developers. every facet that would be tied to it, realtors, attorneys, surveyors, everybody that has very much their hands in this, and KPA does a stellar job of really pulsing their members. And so, similar to what Ryan shared earlier, that right there is a huge tell of kind of just where the development community is as a whole, and knowing that our county has little to no large 40-acre sites to develop on, Those are, I'm not saying we're doing anything different today. I'm just saying those are massive considerations given that that's the community that actually should have a say whether or not this stays in because they'd be the ones to use it. Anyway, I understand that we're going through this process, but I just wanted to put that out there that I think that their opinions and their voices really matter.

And I fully agree with you. I am just having, I guess, my problem, or not problem, my thought is that this is a little bit different than minor edits of what we've been going through.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's remove it. I think that sounds great.

I know this is administrative, but I also can't help but wonder if there are some changes that could be made to the master planning code to make it more applicable so that people do use it. Because at one point when it was added, it was thought to have been a good idea. So people put a lot of work into it at that point. But again, KBA, and it's never been used.

Yeah, and when it was contemplated, it was for a site that has hundreds and hundreds of acres.

Commissioner Vliet.

Yeah, I know we're talking about this quite a bit. I just want to agree with Commissioner Wickson's last comment that maybe we can revise it in the future. I think it's good to have another tool on our tool belt for this. And I can only imagine how much time was spent on designing it. I mean, we're all new to the commission, and I assume that there was a commission before that spent quite a bit of time going through this. So it seems like it's just a good thing to leave in there.

All right. Commission's wish.

Okay. Thank you so much.

So we'll be getting updated documents for the public hearing.

Yes, ma'am.

All right. The next proposed edit is adding two words, commercial uses, to this section of code regarding tree canopy requirements. The impetus behind this is In the comp plan, commercial uses were addressed, and when that was adopted through Ordinance 637-2024, that became official. It just, commercial uses was not added or implemented into the code.

Do you have any questions or comments on this section? All right, I'm seeing none.

apologies commissioner fleet sorry uh other than and i know this is would be getting too much of the weeds commissionably would you mind speaking a little louder oh yeah sorry maybe i'm better amazed better now um this seems like a big run on just a little bit louder i'm so sorry commissioner of elite we're having a really hard time hearing you okay

Is there a way to turn the volume up, Clara?

Will you try one more time, Commissioner of Lake? Clara, just increase the speaker volume here.

Yeah, I don't know if this sounds better.

Yeah, that's a bit better. Thank you.

A bit better? Okay, I'll speak really loud. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, this, I mean, I know this has been getting too deep in the weeds, and maybe a lot of the code is like this, but this looks like a big run-on sentence, and it's actually a little bit confusing to me.

All right. Are there any other comments or questions regarding this item? I see none.

Yeah, we can look into seeing if we can add a period and see if we can fix the run on. We'll see what happens.

Thank you, Yvonne.

The next proposed edit is to the tree canopy deciduous tree credit. There's a math error. So we would want to change that to the correct math where you need to keep both of the six inch DBH trees and plant three instead of six new deciduous or three new conifers to meet the minimum tree density units for the lot. um and this was because the tree the deciduous tree credit was updated from 0.5 to 1 and so the math just needed to be updated any questions or comments on this section commissioner fleet yes i hope this i mean i i guess this is just correctly updating the scrivener's error that was made in the update from 0.5 to 1

But I guess in just a comment on this, I would love to see the Commission meet and discuss that in a further review outside of this review to really talk about the importance of large diameter trees, whether it's an urban, suburban, or wherever it is, because we really need those trees. And as I'm reading the code here and I'm an developer, I'm probably going to cut down every tree on that plant three small trees. I mean, it's it's just profit motivated. And I just, I don't think the developments that I go and sure don't have a whole lot of trees remaining. So that's just a comment on it. But if all we're doing is updating these, updating the code here, then that's my comment.

Are there any other comments or questions regarding the section? See none.

So the next proposed edit is correcting a reference. So the struck out reference there is referring to a boat launch, which is not a site issue. The additional reference is referring to the water-oriented storage. So just correcting that.

Any questions? All right, seeing none.

so now we're getting into the two directors interpretations the first one is the cell tower interpretation um a division of land conducted pursuant to rcw 57.18.0408 for the purpose of leasing land for facilities providing personal wireless services It's exempt from minimum lot size requirements established by Kitsap County code provided the owner meets certain requirements. So the impetus for this is RCW, and there was a specific instance as well where this became an issue. So we're proposing two code edits to officially adopt this director's interpretation into our code. The first one is here in section 16.04.21. and adding the line to the bottom, the division shall comply with Kitsap County Code Title 17 zoning.

Can you go back to the previous slide? Yes. So you're saying that, sorry for that squeak. Exempt from minimum lot size established by Kitsap County code provided that the owner meets certain requirements What are the requirements are those ones on the next page? And on the next page in title 17 where it talks about zoning zoning has minimum lot size But you're saying here that it doesn't have to meet minimum lot size So is there a portion in title 17 that allows them to not meet minimum lot size? So it's not contradicting itself

If I understand your question, I think that this does that. This exempts ‑‑ so let me start with an example, I think, the latest example. And a little history, too. So the wireless facility code was ‑‑ It was overhauled in 2019, I think it was. It involved all the major players, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, I think was at the table. There was three attorneys, Public Works, DCD. It was DCD's project. And they all agreed on this new code at the time. And a lot of it was being driven by federal requirements, especially with a shot clock. And you've got to review these pretty quickly. This notion of lot size minimums was overlooked by that work group back then. And so somewhat recently we had a person out I think near Kingston that wanted to lease property for a tower to be built. And we said, well, you can't do that. You have to subdivide. And so actually they looked into subdivision and found that they couldn't do it because they didn't have and they didn't want to meet the minimum acreage required for that subdivision, which is five acres. So rural residential, you want to do a division, it's five acres. What we work through is an understanding of how to approach that through a leasehold division. And what that means typically is just the bare minimum space on a person's property to have a lease. One of the things we have in code is that whatever your tower is, the setback to the nearest property line, or in this case leasehold line, is 110%. So if the tower ever goes down, neighbors are safe. When you look at a 150-foot tower and you add the 10%, you're looking at 165 by 165, let's say, and that's a really tall tower. That's only 0.63 acres. And so to try and require them to meet the five-acre minimum just was not reasonable. And so we worked through this with the applicant. And this we believe is a logical outcome to set aside those minimums by also requiring other performance obligations within. And those are called out. in Section A1 and A3. Also, A2 says you've got to meet all other code requirements. So you can't put it up in a wetland, for example.

So a couple of questions on that. I was familiar with the fall zone requirement. And my personal opinion on that was that it seemed pretty excessive considering it's designed and engineered to not fall so similar to a building you don't have a fall zone requirement for a building and that falls in requirement actually makes it really prohibitive on types of industrial parcels for example because most industrial parcels in the urban growth areas aren't of size to even allow a fall zone so it really restricts the amount of parcels that are able to have a cell tower from that part of the code The only other question I have is in rural areas, like you said, a five-acre parcel can be subdivided to allow a .6-acre part for a cell tower. That remaining parcel, since we've talked a lot about nonconformity relating to the BLA, would be a nonconforming lot, which would be illegal, correct?

Could be. Legal nonconforming.

How would it be legal if you created it after the GMA and it's under the lot size? Wouldn't it be illegal just like those BLAs were illegal?

No, this would not make that illegal. But in my example I was thinking of, you could have a seven-acre parcel that's rural residential. Sure.

But you probably couldn't do it on a five-acre because it would make it illegal, right?

No, this would not create an illegal parcel as a result of that. It would be illegal not conforming.

Okay, well, that's good.

Yeah. And then on the fall zone. On the fall zone. We've heard that over the years plenty of times. It's something that we want to talk about. We didn't feel like this was the best place to talk about that.

It's more of a policy.

It's more of a policy change. But the other thing that we hear about is more from neighbors that are within that fall zone, even though We haven't heard of one falling over, and they're designed to withstand substantial weather. But the neighbors are the ones that like that buffer, if you will. So it is a policy discussion. But soon after, it's interesting that this was something that the telecom companies were okay with. But fairly soon after, they were not. So it's something that we've got to wrestle with at some point.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Do we have any other comments or questions? So far, I know we have one more slide that ties. OK. Oh, so sorry, Commissioner Vliet.

Yeah, I just didn't know if any of the commissioners thought that these changes here that are being looked at are a little bit more extensive and may need a little bit more review. Speaking of cell tower, this seems like a little bit different than a lot of the other things we're kind of going through and just checking off. That's my thoughts on it.

Do any of our fellow commissioners have any thoughts on that?

I guess I'd just like to ask staff if any of these in particular you can say change the code in a drastic, enforceable, pliable way.

So we're already using the director's interpretation. That's being applied. And the purpose of this is to adopt the director's interpretation into code as it is written right now, as it is being applied right now. So changing anything in here would be changing the director's interpretation, which is the policy change.

And that's this fully presented in front of us.

The second part. So this was just the first, this, this first slide was the smaller change talking about the compliance with title 17. And then this is the bigger chunk of the meaning behind the DI as it stands right now. And as it is applied right now.

So in answer to your question, no, we don't think these are terribly controversial.

And they'll go through a public hearing process and then we'll have further chance to discuss them on the 24th. So we can, as planning commissioners review this code in more detail and find anything that we think may be controversial or if there is any concern on the commission.

Yeah.

We just wouldn't be able to present that on the 6th, June 16th. That's a public hearing. Is that, Correct. To understand we can't, that that would not be an appropriate time for us to bring any next questions at the next meeting. It would have to be something subsequent to that. If we had anything that we'd like to amend or change with this. Is that, am I thinking proper like order of operations? Like at our, because the next meeting around this admin code update is the public hearing. Right.

And then in deliberations you could talk about.

So in deliberations we can.

Correct.

Yeah. Okay. I just want to make sure it's clear. Everyone knows where the proper time and place.

Yeah. And, you know, the more I think about this, we really are adopting what the Director's interpretation, you know, stated and published. But the DI code is meant to go through a robust public hearing process so that if there are changes to that that make sense, maybe the director didn't get it right or missed something, then we'd want to entertain that. And if that becomes controversial, then we would pull the DI.

The main reason I was asking was just so Commissioner Vliet would be able to have time if he had any concerns to further research the code before it was implemented. I'm not sure if that satisfies his concern or not. Maybe he can speak to that.

Yeah, I think that satisfies it. I appreciate that.

And of course, if any of the planning commissioners have any questions, they can reach out to April or myself.

I have one more quick question. These were already sent out to the public. as a director's interpretation, correct? Yes. Like a year ago, six months ago, 20 days ago?

Maybe closer to five months ago, maybe.

Five months ago? Okay.

I think. Both of them? No, the non-conforming homes was done five years ago, maybe.

Okay.

It's just been sitting there waiting for an opportunity to be considered.

Okay. Thank you.

I think five years ago.

I think so.

All right. Any other further questions or comments on this piece? Do we want to go over the director's interpretation at all? No? Okay. I think everyone's good.

The director's interpretation is like the actual, the full document is linked in the documents that you received. And I can also work with Clara to make that more easily available. It's also publicly available online. I just summarized the director's interpretation on my first slide introducing this topic.

I think if there's no questions or comments on this further, I think we're OK to go forward.

Okay, so the final director's interpretation is on replacement of certain non-conforming homes. So for example, there had been a home, a manufactured home that burned down and the replacement of that home either had to be quite a bit smaller or within 10% larger, just based on when the home was originally manufactured. And so this DI allows for the replacement structure to be no greater than 10% of the original structure's size if the zoning variance is met. And that interpretation would be added to section 17.570.050D. And the entire section of code is regarding destruction of nonconforming use of structure. And this sentence would be tacked on to the end of that. So when requested by the applicant, the replacement square footage of a mobile or manufactured home under this section may exceed by no greater than 10% in size if they can demonstrate that they meet the variance criteria noted in the other section.

I just have a hypothetical maybe. If somebody had like a very, very old single wide, you know, like from early 70s, they're very small. It would be hard to even find a manufactured home today that you could get small enough to fit into that 10%. What would somebody do in that case if they just literally couldn't source a manufactured home to replace? Like there's not an available design. Would they have to stick build under the required square footage?

If there's not a manufactured home available that's within 10% of the original size of the mobile home, then they'd have to look at stick build.

Okay. So they, okay. So those, I know it's a very few and far between sect of people, but there are a lot of really old single wides that are very, very small and it's hard to find with current building structures to find one that would be even within that 10, It's a little tough sometimes like total square footage so I was just curious if those folks have an option because usually There's an affordability difference too and purchasing a small Manufacturing versus a stick built and the infrastructure and things like that and so I was just curious if there's consideration for those folks in our County so I

First you pointed out that these things are, mobile homes are going away over time. There's not very many left. But these really refer to non-performing, legal non-performing structures, mobile homes, that are perhaps within a setback. And so that's where you're looking at having to do that. If they're within the setbacks of their lot, then they can replace it with whatever they want and they're not bound by this limitation. This is really about non-performing structures, which we don't see a lot of. More often it's usually somebody has a non-performing structure and they want to just simply add on to it, which means continuing a non-performing setback and we have a difficult decision there.

Okay. That makes more sense. Yeah. Thank you. I think I was just missing that piece. No, I'm glad you asked. Yeah. Thank you, Scott.

How did you come up with the 10%? I know that that's a pretty standard amount for a director's interpretation deviation, but to echo Ashley's thoughts there, is that driven by the statistics from any sort of building group or association that says they've only gotten 10% bigger in the last 40 years?

No, so I managed this when it first came in. There was a fire, and we said, all right, we can replace it with a like structure. It was a manufactured home, and they couldn't find one that was that size or smaller. And they came back and said, we found one, but it's 8% bigger. And so we just said, well, let's create a DI for that, and we'll land at 10%.

Are you OK? You're good? OK. So this proposed code says certain legal nonconforming structures may be replaced. So this is not about adding on. It's actually being replaced. So what does it matter as long as they put something that is conforming within the limitations and the setbacks? Why do we have to call this out? with the 10%? I'm not too sure what the intent and purpose is of this code.

Yeah. So let me see if I can explain it a different way. So when we got this request from the example I'm talking about, the real instance, they were within their setbacks. And so had we said, you know, do whatever you want, they could have come back with something much bigger, but it would have continued within the setbacks. If they move it out of the setbacks and they're not having non-performing setbacks, they can do whatever they want. But it's when it's a non-performing structure, usually involving setbacks. then we say, all right, you've got to be mindful of what your existing setbacks are. You can't continue with a three-foot setback all the way down your property line. You've got to be mindful of what the real requirement is, 5, 10 feet, 20 feet if it's off the front. And so that's what this is designed to do is to help people bump up a size if that's what they need to do and also kind of limit the non-conformities that are created by doing that.

I guess I'm just confused because if they had a manufactured home and there was a fire and they wanted to replace it and it meets all the setbacks that are required as it would with a single family home if they were to build one, What does it matter? Why do they have to have that 10% threshold put upon them that they have to reach? They should have the freedom to be able to put whatever they want as long as it meets the code and the setbacks, correct?

I'm totally following you. I think where this has landed in code might be more helpful to see. You want to pull it up? Okay. It's 17-570-05-0. And so the code we're pulling up is in our nonconformity section of code. I think that's maybe what you're missing, that this is about nonconformity throughout the county, nonconforming structures, nonconforming uses, nonconforming use of structures. This is being added on to destruction of nonconforming use of structure.

So do we allow non-conforming uses of structures on properties? I think.

Oh, B. Yeah, I think that's what it's supposed to be called.

So I think there's a reference to the wrong code site. Do you want to pull up B? That's what we really should be looking at, nonconforming use of structure. And so this, again, speaks about nonconforming structures. If it's destroyed by any cause, it can be replaced. And up to the same size, total square footage of structure, square footage of footprint, and height and appearance, provided the director has the discretion to allow a different appearance if he finds that it would be more compatible with the zone in which it is located. We decided, based on the ask that was in front of us some years ago, that we would just codify that there could be a greater than – there could be up to a 10 percent allowance so that you didn't have to meet the requirement of it could be It's got to be the same size. I should pull it up. I can't really read it. But the same size square footage of the structure, square footage of the footprint. Is that making more sense?

I'll leave it. I just am trying to understand when somebody has something like you used as an example, and they go to replace the structure on their property, as long as they're meeting the setbacks that are required by... DCD, they're limited on the size that they are allowed to put on their property by this code. I'm just trying to understand what does it matter as long as they're addressing and meeting all of the requirements as a structure would be on a piece of land.

So a non-performing structure can be replaced in its original location. And there's other requirements. You've got to apply for a permit within a year and all that. But it can be set back into its original location, which may be non-performing by virtue of not being setbacks. What this is attempting to do is to allow a little greater footprint while allowing up to 10% incursion into that setback, but by not allowing more incursions and creating a non-conforming setback.

Okay, so you're allowing the non-conformants when they go to replace the structure.

Yes, thank you. Yes, sorry, I should have just said that.

Okay, thank you.

Oh, yeah.

We were going to get there, you guys. We were. I knew that. Somehow.

Yeah. And to clarify, this is not use of structure. It's not use of structure. This is just non-conforming structure. Structure, right. So there's that error. OK. Yeah, yeah. That threw me for a loop, so.

OK. Another change coming your way. Yeah. Like that.

is there any other yeah is there any other questions or anything around that particular piece all right i'm seeing none oh it's gonna start me over from the beginning i don't want that

I only have two more slides, so the public hearing is scheduled for June 16th. The documents are out for that will work on the edits from today to get those out again and then deliberations and finding a fact are proposed for July 21st. Jim Rogers will be doing that. I'll be out of the country for that date. And that. Is it for this evening?

Beautiful. Do we have anything wholly around this for Scott or April?

I don't see anything.

Yeah, thank you both so much. Oh, go ahead, Kathy.

I just have a quick go back to clarity question, just so I can wrap my mind around it. And I apologize. I'm just trying to understand. When we were discussing the co-living, when you state co-living, And you reference family into the multifamily terminology. What happens to a property owner who owns a condo and they want to rent out the rooms to students who may be going to college adjacent to their condo? A condo is described as multifamily, correct? It's defined that way?

I don't know if it's defined that way. You can have single condominium units.

Okay.

All right. And just to clarify, it's not being added into multifamily. It's being added into the definition of group living.

Okay. Thank you.

All right.

I'll just, if I can just follow up on that, the new condo laws, uh, haven't been fully analyzed by Kitsuk County, but we know that they've changed and we know that they're difficult. Um, and in some cases the county, uh, may not be allowed to have any role in the condo condominiumization of properties might be allowed outright by the state.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you both. We really appreciate your time and answering all of our questions.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

All right. So our next item on our agenda is bringing us to our second and final general public comment period. Seeing none in the room, we're going to look online. Looking online, we're seeing none. If there's no more additional speakers, I will close the second and final general public comment period. And to bring us home, our last agenda item is going to be for the good of the order. Do any of my commissioners have any comments that they would wish to share?

so wanted to touch on something that we talked about tonight and that was the classification of land and open space and how we handle it on the Planning Commission and Before I make my little spiel I've written down some notes and I'd like to bounce them off the members of the Commission and then also ask staff to ask legal for a description that may help Influence all of our thinking and decision-making going forward in the future But before I get into that I'd like to make just a statement blanket statement because there's more rules surrounding quasi judicial than legislative things Which we've all learned from the prosecuting attorney so I want to state clearly for the record that my remarks are strictly limited to the procedural framework of our code and I evaluated tonight's applicants strictly on the record presented I DON'T WANT TO SAY ANYTHING THAT MUDDIES THE WATER ABOUT ANY APPLICANT REGARDING OPEN SPACE. I JUST WANT TO HAVE A CONVERSATION. SO WE'RE ALL NEW MEMBERS OF THE COMMISSION, AND WHEN THIS CAME UP, I WAS CURIOUS. SO I DID SOME RESEARCH AS TO WHY THE PLANNING COMMISSION WOULD EVEN PROCEED A CONVERSATION ABOUT A QUASI JUDICIAL MATTER AND I THOUGHT IT'S STRANGE BECAUSE THERE'S OTHER TYPES OF TAX DESIGNATIONS LIKE FORESTRY. THERE'S A SENIOR ONE AND THEN THERE'S ALSO AGRICULTURAL AND THESE TYPES OF CLASSIFICATIONS don't go in front of DCD at all. You just file them directly with the auditor. This is the only type that goes not only in front of DCD, but also in front of the entire Planning Commission for their decision and the Board of County Commissioners. And the reason for it, as I found, was there's an RCW that requires that. It has to be treated in the same way that a comprehensive plan update is treated, which is weird to me, considering that the other ones don't have to be treated that way. So when I joined the planning commission and as I make and formulate my opinions, and I'm not sure how you guys do, but I like to like put myself into two groups. Why does DCD want to do something a certain way? I guess three, how does the state require it? And then how would I feel if I was the applicant on anything relating to what we're talking about? And when I think about the open space application, I think about how people are basically voluntarily using a part of the code that exists with a legal precedent. And we're kind of presiding like a judge over what they're legally allowed to do as long as they follow the bounds that are set in Kitsap County code. So I did a little bit of research and read that in Jefferson County, the Planning Commission actually does not make decisions over open space designations. And I guess when I put myself in the shoes of the applicant, I can't help but think that it's a little bit unpredictable for the applicant who maybe has owned, I wanna just make an example that we can all discuss. Let's say you've owned a piece of property for multiple generations and it's getting unaffordable to own because of the tax. Let's say that you take a legal part of the code to apply for that tax and DCD allows you to enter into that tax categorization. Then we as appointed members that aren't elected are making a decision on how that person uses their property. Now you can debate that, but the law requires that we have a part in that process. So I'm not trying to say, well, I think this, this should be taken away from the planning commission because that's legally not supported. But what I do wonder is if we as planning commissioners could adopt a framework that makes it more predictable for applicants and also eases the burden on the staff because if the staff has to come to us and present all of this like jason did tonight he did great that's an extra burden placed on him and then it's also we're looking at things on an individual basis when we really shouldn't be we should be looking at do they meet the code that the county requires and if they didn't the county would never bring that to us in the first place so i guess I'M SAYING THIS BECAUSE I HAD A CONVERSATION WITH SCOTT BEFORE THE MEETING WHERE I DISCUSSED SOME OF THIS WITH HIM AND HE SUGGESTED THAT THE BEST WAY TO GET CLARIFICATION ON THIS IS TO BRING IN FRONT OF THE COMMISSION AND ASK FOR A LEGAL opinion i don't know if it's an opinion a legal statement from the county on why this is handled this way why others aren't handled this way and what we could do to make it potentially more predictable for an applicant so i i know i want to get home it's really hot it's just something that i had in in my head and i didn't want to say any of this before because i'm not trying to muddy the waters again there's rules when you when you deal with quasi-judicial manners we have to be we have to be fair we have to rely on the facts and we all do and we SHOULD CONTINUE TO DO THAT. I JUST WANT TO HAVE A CONVERSATION ABOUT IF ANYONE THINKS THAT IT'S MAYBE A LITTLE BIT UNPREDICTABLE FOR AN APPLICANT AND IF POTENTIALLY THERE IS MAYBE A LITTLE BIT OF STAFF LOAD THAT COULD BE REDUCED, THAT'S KIND OF THE CONVERSATION.

AM I ALLOWED TO? Yeah, yeah, okay, so I just didn't know what I don't know what the parameters round for a good of the order We never gotten this spicy at this point before so I'm I just want a conversation Okay, Scott said yes, so So Around that I think Irregardless, I'm very pro getting clarification from the powers that be whether that's our County Attorney and IF DCD IS INTO THE IDEA, IS THERE A PERTINENT NEED FOR US TO REVIEW THESE OPEN SPACE APPLICATIONS? I BELIEVE YOU SAID IT WAS AN RCW. I CAN'T IMAGINE WHY THURSTON COUNTY WOULD HAVE A DIFFERENT unless their charter as a whole is different, which I don't know. I've never researched that particular commission, but that would be the main differentiator, in my opinion, would be if their charters were indifferent, because we have a very unique charter compared to all of our neighboring municipalities.

To add to it, I had just done a little bit of brief research on it, maybe more than a little bit, but Jefferson County made it sound like the Planning Commission adopted a document that DCD follows their guidance on. So basically DCD already has a checklist which is incorporated into the county code which basically quantifies what's allowed in an open space tax exemption and how you come up with a dollar amount. That's part of the reason DCD presides over these, I imagine, is because in instances of senior citizens, it's an income-driven thing. In instances of forestry, it's an acreage-driven thing. But in these, you have to specifically quantify what types of critical areas you have on your property, and somebody needs to be there to do it. The auditor doesn't want to do it, so the county does it. And I'm not trying to make a statement to say that the Planning Commission shouldn't preside over these at all or whatever. I think that it's important, and it's driven by the state law, If it's true that Jefferson County does it in a different way, which streamlines the process for the applicants and reduces the workload for the staff, I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm just curious if there's a way to streamline it and make it more predictable for the applicant.

We can make a planning commission's interpretation. I'm not sure. I don't know. I don't know if that's what Jefferson County did, but it would seem to be following the same

They actually have a, and Ryan was nice enough to bring a copy of what they have. It's a pretty thick document that they've got that they're using. And we haven't had a chance to look at it. And Ashley makes some good points about their charter, their organization. If I may, I do agree that we're just simply checking a box and we don't have any weight, good reasons typically not to check that box. In fact, I don't think those boxes have never been left unchecked in all of them that have been done. We certainly would like to look at this. We'll get an opinion. Obviously, we can't share the legal opinion directly with you, but we can tell you what our attorney is advising us, just not in their direct words. And there was something, oh, there's also a legislative fix, but, you know, usually those are pretty big ticket items that they're considering and this is pretty small. But, you know, why is it being treated differently when it's still just check a box like the other, the Ag, the Forest and so on?

I have two comments. One, I do believe that we don't, yes, we say yes or no, but technically our yes or no is not a binding yes and no. It is just a recommendation up to the commissioners. And so we're not actually a binding decision-making process.

That's a great point.

And then secondly, it does allow for the public. So we are a service in essence, right? And it allows for the public to know what's happening and that these particular parcels are now becoming open space, whether they can have access to them or not, but that they won't be getting built on. And it allows the public not because we are just representatives of the public, right? And it also allows having it, I totally understand your comment of they're coming and we're all looking at this, right, and voting, in essence voting, although, again, it doesn't have any binding. But it gives the whole public the ability to know that this is happening. And that's one thing that the Planning Commission does is it allows a space for DCD and for other people other whatever, to bring those items here allows the public to see them and then have that visibility. A transparency. Thank you. That transparency. And so, yes, it may seem redundant. But at the same time, it is a process that allows everyone to see everything.

And I totally understand that. And for the record, I'm not making a motion to change anything of the way that the planning commission deals with anything. There are also several different types of public noticing that the county has through several other types of projects and permit types that don't run through the planning commission. And I a hundred percent agree with you that we don't have any legal binding type thing. Now to say that we don't influence, I don't think that would be accurate. Sure.

Just one at a time, just so clarity for the record, please.

But like I said, I'm not making a motion. I just want to know how other counties do it. And in a time of state legislature passing bills that impact the way counties review permits, if there is a legally binding way that other counties are dealing with the same process that saves staff time, still gives the Planning Commission the power that it's required under law, and makes it easier and more predictable for applicants to figure out how they can operate within the legal bounds of our existing codes,

i would be all for that but i just want to know what's legal and what other counties are doing so that we can all have a conversation yeah and and so with that uh... and with the understanding that the public hearing is required that the board has delegated that public hearing responsibility to the planning commission we can look at is there a better way of doing business you know what is jefferson doing i think the document you pointed out was from nineteen ninety one so It may not even be legal anymore. Who knows, right? But I think we could certainly take a look at how we do this and maybe stretch our minds a little bit with legal and see what we can come up with.

Thank you, everyone.

Do we have any more items for the good of the order? None. Seeing none. Okay. If there are no other items for tonight's meeting, I declare this meeting adjourned at 8.12 p.m. The next Planning Commission meeting is scheduled for June 16, 2026 at 5.30 p.m. Thank you, everyone. Have a good night.