Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the October 7 meeting of the Kitsap County Planning Commission. Thank you for your participation. As the administration Building is currently under a fire watch due to malfunction in the building's fire alarm system. In the event of an emergency that requires evacuation, we will notify you to directly leave the area and ask you to leave in an orderly manner through any of the doors. There is a door up here and there's doors at that end.

Once out the doors, there's exits to the left and down the stairs and to the right. As have as a result of having fire watches here, we have a hard stop tonight at 09:00. This is a hybrid meeting. Please silence all your electronic devices during the meeting. If attending in person, please refrain from conversation with other attendees or staff during the meeting.

If you wish to provide general public comment or public hearing general public comment, we have four methods available. First for virtual attendees, raise your hand at the appropriate time using the raise hand button at the bottom of the Zoom window. Your name will be called, your microphone will be unmuted. Second, call in attendees can signal by pressing 9 on their keypad. The last four digits of your phone number will be called and you will be connected.

You may need to dial 6 to unmute your phone. Third, written comments testimony can be submitted to the staff or emailed to cjewelkitsap dot gov by 2PM the day prior to the meeting. Please indicate the date of the meeting that your comments pertain to. Add your name, the agenda item, or subject you're addressing. Submitted comments will then be read into the record at the appropriate time.

For all speakers, please state your name and general area where which you live. Comments are normally limited to two minutes. I would request that you if you intend to give two minute comments in general period, raise your hand so we can plan the meeting. How many here in the audience want to talk? One, two, three, three for general. Online, how many people would like? Please raise your hand online so we can see how many comments we need to plan for.

I see two hands up virtually.

Okay, thank you. First item is to adopt the agenda.

I move to the to adopt the agenda. I'll second.

All in favor? Agenda is adopted. Next item is adoption of minutes from 07/15/2025.

I move to adopt the minutes from July 15.

08/19/2025? July.

July.

August.

August 19.

August 19.

August 9. Oops.

Moved it out the minutes from 08/19/2025.

Second. Any comments, discussion? All in favor? Okay. The next is the general public comment period. If there's anybody here to repeat or give testimony that has already been heard during the public hearing, we would encourage your comments to be brief. Please Please let's start with the first person in house.

There we go. My name is Eric Olson. I live out near South Colby. I just want to put onto the public record right now about the proposed changes that are gonna be happening with the equestrian code that we've got right now. I had an opportunity to look over the meeting that took place and with the with the small community committee that was there. And I just wanna say that there is no no way on God's green earth that anything that was discussed there should be moving forward in any capacity. We're not at a 60%. They're not even at a 10%. They can't answer questions. They can't even try and articulate what it is they want to do.

Everything that is in red with these proposed changes needs to just go away. If you want clarification about things, that's fantastic. The way that they're going about it is spurious, is red tape, it does nothing to actually solve any problems. And it essentially just overlaps a bunch of other state and county codes and laws that would effectively take care of the issues. So from my point of view and from many people's point of view in the community and the county at large, none of this should be going forward at all. And that's all I have to

say about that.

Thank you. Thank you. Next in house.

Good evening. Again, my name is Cliff Peterson. I've been a resident of South Kitsap for over four decades. I come before you as a landowner, business owner, and youth mentor, deeply committed to responsibility, liberty, and interdependent community. First first, I wanna thank you for your service.

Your public service, when rooted in humility, courage, and integrity, is an honorable calling. And I also add that I do not know any of you personally, so none of this is intended to be accusatory to any specific individual. That said, let me be unequivocally clear. The power resides with the people, not in agencies, not in unelected boards, and not in bureaucracy. Every official here serves by consent of the governed, and that consent is not ever licensed for administrative overreach.

What we are witnessing in Kitsap County and across Washington state is rule making by appointment, not by representation. Unelected appointees are drafting restrictions never voted on by the people, and is not that is not democracy that is rule by proxy. Some members of this commission serve with good intent. I know and appreciate that. Others, however, appear to be advancing personal or ideological agendas, policies driven by greed, fear, or geocentric worldview, that elevates the earth above humanity itself.

That ideology treats man as a parasite rather than a steward, And this is incompatible with both liberty and truth. Some members of the commission oh, must also confront a dangerous narrative, this so called housing crisis, which we face as not a housing crisis, but a responsibility and productivity crisis. A crisis of character, and a society obsessed with absolute independence and entitlement with no regard for interdependence or accountability cannot sustain freedom. I call for a return to the first principles and to our creator, where freedom is inseparable from moral responsibility. The role of government is not to manage citizens, but to protect their rights.

The role of this commission is not to expand codes, but to uphold liberty. The central planning central planning failed ideology is a failed ideology. History has proven that systems which try to control free people from the top down will always collapse under their own weight. What sustains a healthy society is not regulation. It is self governance. And as Thomas Jefferson warned, the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. Let us draw the line here with courage, conviction, and gratitude for those who truly serve people and with the calm strength of citizens who will not yield their rights to convenience or counsel. Thank you very much.

Next in house.

Hello. My name is Miles Payton. I have lived here fourteen years, entire life, in Port Orchard. And I have spoken to you before about, youth and my story with horses and about my relationship with taking care of them. But today, I want to give you my numbers about what I've researched on these topics.

Not counting faith based or sport based programs for youth thirteen to eighteen, there are roughly seven large organizations in Kitsap County. These are Wassett, Pony Club, FFA, four h, SAC Arts Center, Dispute Resolution Center of Kitsap County, and Empowerment Youth Mentorship Program. If Year of the World were to go into place, four out of these big seven organizations would be at risk for closure. That is fifty seven percent of these organizations. Suicide rates increased by sixty seven percent for youth 24 throughout America between 2010 and 2018.

And in 2019, roughly sixteen point six percent of deaths in Washington were due to suicide. When we risk closure of these organizations and make it harder for youth to find community, we risk their lives and increase a risk of them harming themselves or others. So I urge you, commissioners, as a youth and as a horse person, to stop yours, the role from hurting our community.

Thank you. Next in house. Next in house. Seeing none, first online.

First up, William Palmer.

Thank you. I presume you can hear me. What concerns me about the you're the rural equestrian is that you've got many, many people who are opposed to the ordinance. And what that tells me as a land use planner who's been through many, many comprehensive plan and ordinance development processes that there's a flaw in the public participation portion where it appears to me staff did not take the time they should have to work out compromises or solutions rather than just propose solutions that the public has to react to and gets basically no say if this goes forward. What they're needed to be is a group of people sitting down to work out solutions and not just staff working out a solution that might pacify their permitting process.

Also I'm concerned that anytime there's a requirement for a public hearing conditional use permit That's just an order that would prolong and be very costly to the people involved. It's taken just on building permits. It's taken in some cases four years to get the permits processed. In other cases where there's a requirement for conditional use permit, I'm quite well aware of the process that's taken three to four years to go through that process and for my clients it's been very, very expensive with a never ending goal inside of getting the public hearing. So I'm very concerned that any ordinance proposed, adds a requirement for a public hearing, conditional use permit being the most likely is a death knell for the individual that's trying to do something productive in the community.

Now I wasn't able to testify at the public hearing last time, but when you look at all the people that are opposed to this particular ordinance provision and I suppose the subsequent year of the rural ordinance provisions, there's a problem. If I were director as I once was, I'd send the staff back to the drawing board to work out a a much better public involvement process. And also, I believe that a ordinance conflicts with state law too. More about that later. Thank you.

Second online.

Deborah Gates.

My name's Deborah Gates. I've lived on 10 acres in North For twenty eight years. I practiced environmental law for forty seven years as a federal prosecutor, as a law professor teaching environmental law at Seattle University, and as the first one vice president of major oil company, Valvoline Ashland Oil. And I am very concerned about the county violating the Growth Management Act. Section 36.70A.

140 states that counties and cities shall establish public participation procedures in the development and amendment of comprehensive land use plans. And let me quote from the Growth Management Act. These procedures shall provide for broad dissemination of proposals and alternatives, opportunity for written comments, and public meetings. The only public meeting was held on 09/11/2025. That was designated as a holiday and a day of remembrance and day of service, not only by the president, but by the governor of Washington and even the three county commissioners.

Yet they held the only public meeting on a holiday. And that is flat wrong. It insults the memory of my grandfather and father, volunteer firefighters, and the the volunteer firefighting company my grandfather founded crossed state lines and went into the Twin Towers on nineeleven. So you disrespect firefighters, first responders across the country by what you did. I also urge the county to follow RCW thirty six point zero one point two three o, and that's cooperative watershed management and comprehensive plans.

This state law directs counties to examine water supply, water quality, and habitat protection and management in developing comprehensive plans. Kitsap County is running out of water. Just ask other folks in this room. Just ask residents who have dry wells, not just in the summer, but during other times of the years. The diminished water supply also means that water quality is degraded.

The commercial well drillers will confirm this and should be involved in this. In 1986, King County examined the lack of future water supplies in an update to the comprehensive plan for Vashon Island. I personally chaired that land use committee. We held over 50 public meetings. The King County Council unanimously approved the protections for aquifers based on a hydrogeological study and the citizen meetings.

Surely, Kitsap County can follow the model of King County from over thirty years ago, and I would be glad to help you. I still have those documents. So I really I really hope that you start this process over again. I think you've heard that you've heard that from so many people. And have a real public meeting this time, not on a holiday. Don't disrespect first responders across the country. Thank you for your attention.

Are there any others?

Christine Civalletti.

Good evening, commissioners and staff. I want to say thank you, first of all, to Ms. Cleveland for returning my email questions. I did speak at the meeting on the twenty third, and I wanted to follow-up and reiterate my disdain with these changes. I don't agree with them. I do agree with every speaker tonight. And as I said in my email to Ms. Cleveland, transparency is the most important thing with this, which I don't think that there's been enough of. When you don't have transparency, you have nothing but rumors and innuendos. That's just not the right way to change an ordinance and adopt new codes.

I would say that I understand what you're talking about when you say that people have to better manage their waste and manure and all of those things that go along with having animals and agriculture uses, but that's not specifically aligned to horses and equine and equestrian properties. If you are going to look at that aspect of it, I would really, as a personal issue with me I take offense at it is I would wish you look at all of these other undeveloped land here in Kitsap County that happen to have encampments on them. And I question where is their waste management when they have human out there just using their property as their home with no proper waste plan. I would expect that a county would more target those properties than the majority of the equestrian and equine properties, and even cattle facilities that I can think of that do manage their waste manure piles in a proper manner. So you are looking at a smaller majority that you could probably look at addressing that issue specifically, but you have a big problem with homeless people moving into undeveloped land where property owners are actually vacant, don't live here, don't monitor their properties, don't clean up.

Those are a bigger problem that you should be addressing, and that could be included in your rural. That's all I have to say tonight. Thank you for listening.

Thank you. Any other online?

I don't see any other virtual attendees wanting to speak at this time.

With that, I'm going to close the first general comment period. I'd like to open the the next proceedings by introductions. Can I have the two online introduce yourselves?

Hi. I'm Richard Chattuck representing Central Kitsap.

David Fleet, North Kitsap.

Thanks. Adrian Hampton, Central Kitsap.

Kathy Meisenberg, North Kitsap.

Allen Beam, Central Kitsap.

Tammy Bowen, North Kitsap.

Ashley Hall, South Kitsap.

Caleb Nelson, South Kitsap.

Danielle Douthat, South Kitsap.

At this time we will begin the deliberations for twenty twenty five year of the rural. Before the deliberations start the board will have a presentation from staff.

Good evening, commissioners and public. Thank you for your attendance and the opportunity to present and deliberate tonight. I'm giving a brief presentation. I'll go quickly through it because you've seen most of it before. But then the part where we will open it up is the deliberations table where we can start to look at what we've identified as areas for further research and discussion discussion back and forth with you all. So I will go ahead and begin the presentation. My name's Heather Cleveland. I am a long range planner with the Department of Community Development at Kitsap County, and I'm the lead on the Year of the World project.

And I'm Scott Diener, Planning Manager for Kitsap County Department of Community Development.

First we'll go over the project overview. Starting with the Growth Management Act, which we've covered before, so this does start from the top there, where it identifies planning goals. The rural element is mandatory, and the main part of the rural element is rural character. There are three main land types in the Growth and Management Act. It's urban, rural, and resource lands, and we propose in our chapter a fourth type called working lands.

There's a tiered planning process. It starts with a four county planning process that includes Snohomish County, King County, Pierce County, and Kitsap County. It then goes down to the county wide planning process and policies, which includes Kitsap County and the four other cities jurisdictions, and then it comes down to our individual comprehensive plans. Kitsap County adopted our 2024 comprehensive plan December, And this rural and resource lands and the year of the rural effort is coming out of that project. Today in Kitsap County, I'll also add here, and I've mentioned other times that the Growth Management Act passed in 1990.

And we worked Kitsap County had three invalid plans and their first adopted comprehensive plan was in 1998. There was significant subdividing in the nineteen thirty's and then again before we adopted our first comprehensive plan. So what we call though, they're smaller lots than five acres. We also have significantly subdivided shoreline properties and we are also the only county in the state of Washington without agriculture zoning. So just a few things to note with respect to Kitsap County's history.

And then today in Kitsap County, we have UGA's, we have Lammerd's, our limited area of more intense rural development. We have forest resource land and mineral resource overlays. And then we also have our rural lands and our three zones that we assessed here for the most part was rural, wooded, rural protection and rural residential. The proposal here is for a new chapter. So this is the layout of the 2024 comprehensive plan and this will become a new chapter.

It's under it'll be chapter two, which is under the land use chapter. The last time the rural and resource lands chapter was alone was in the 2010 comprehensive plan. It was rolled into the land use chapter in 2016 and again in 2014. And what was identified during the two and a half year 2024 comprehensive plan update, that focus was very much on urban growth areas and hitting housing targets, population targets and employment. But we still need that emphasis and that focus on planning in rural and resource lands.

So hence the year of the rural and creating and updating the rural and resource lands chapter. This is an overview of our outreach. We reviewed the four public comment periods that were part of the comp plan. We conducted two surveys, one point zero and two point zero. We had multiple presentations, interviews and meetings.

We had an agricultural working group steering committee from the beginning that came out of advocacy from the agricultural community for an agriculture advisory council, which you'll find that in the chapter, the recommendation for that. We also worked with Kitsap County Child Care Task Force. We had several tribal coordination meetings, along with other stakeholders where we did presentations and had interviews to gather information and discuss this process. We also held workshops in June. So in the three different districts we held year of the world workshops where we talked about rural character and then also several of the topics that we were working through, including child care and battery energy storage systems and other topics.

I like to highlight this comment here that was mentioned. This was mentioned in the South Kitsap workshop. The question was forestry requires access to mills or on-site milling. What provisions are adding to small scale industrial zoning to rural wooded? We weren't able to answer that question, but we are responding to that with, the recommendation for a forestry advisory council in looking at what is the future of rural and resource lands in Kitsap County.

And then the bottom, the blue part is what's happened since, publication of the deliverables on September 2. It includes presentations to community advisory councils to let them know about and promote the public process, which we're in right now. We also had an open house. And then the opportunity for public comment has been since September 12. We have a form on the public page, and that was opened through September 23 for comments to the Planning Commission.

So all of those have been compiled. All of the table of those, what I call the raw data, was published on the twenty fourth. And then we submitted to you and published on our page the summary of those comments, of which there's over 300 today. And in addition to that, we had public testimony at the hearing with Planning Commission on September 23, where we also listened to and ensured those are incorporated in what we're presenting on the deliberation table moving forward. So the three deliverables.

We have the rural and resource lands chapter. We have the proposed code updates and the reclassification requests. This is an outline of the rural chapter. It matches the for the most part how the outline of the 2024 comprehensive plan. And so we worked hard to not only look back to how it was laid out in 2010, but to ensure that it flows as this will be a chapter within the 2024 comprehensive plan.

These are the themes that we identified in working through this, which includes rural development, resource lands and working lands, rural business, rural service and infrastructure, and rural environment. We also have we're actively evaluating three proposed code updates, which includes child care, horse boarding, and agriculture. Essentially, the child care, why this came under year of the rural is that child care centers and in home day care or child care was not previously allowed in rural wooded, so it was something that we looked at. And then recently a bill passed, requiring all zones in cities, not counties, all zones in cities other than industrial and I believe one other one to allow daycare. So we took that and we were able to with this allow daycare centers and in home daycares in all zones other than Green Belt and rural industrial.

How we did that is we reviewed all past conditional use permits related to childcare centers and in home along with Montessori schools to come up with a list of conditions that would allow this to be permitted. And by that I mean a permitting process that's not an ACUP or a CUP. So that's what we proposed here for the childcare code. And I'll also add with that that we also looked to align the definitions of childcare center and in home childcare with the state definitions. And we received feedback, so we're still working on that.

But what we heard from the childcare community is that sometimes it's difficult with all the different jurisdictions and requirements that they're not always speaking the same language. We also proposed an equestrian facility code and wanted to point out some things with this. So this was to address how this was presented in the year of the rule from the beginning, although not this specifically was land use compatibility. I mentioned earlier that we do not have agricultural zoning, but we do have residential development and so we were looking to land use compatibility. The specific topic at hand for us that was brought forward was related to equestrian facility, So that's the one that we moved forward.

One to note that this does not apply to private property owners. The code is not retroactive. We're also pointing out here when in the proposed code that the conditional use permit would apply the administrative versus the conditional use permit with the hearing examiner. And this is also this relates to the impacts of public health, safety and welfare is the reason that we brought this forward. This is a slide that I had shared previously.

Some of the questions that we received. So what is the problem that we're trying to solve? It has to do with impacts. We previously had a conditional use permit requirement for equestrian facilities. There are equestrian facilities that exist with those conditions and so that's why this was put forward with respect to land use compatibility. Outreach was done. There was an agriculture working group steering committee created. Equestrian folks several equestrian folks were invited to a working group that was in the spring. And then we also did outreach to the agricultural community in the form of workshops in the month of May. I will say that this particular topic was not elevated, so I didn't think, I don't, I know now that it didn't get the attention that it needed.

But this land use compatibility, the year of the rural and the rural and resource lands work has been a topic and outreach that we've worked on from the beginning of this project. I mentioned earlier the code, it comes from Kitsap County code, but also assessing other counties and what they do. It is not retroactive, it is looking, what we're looking to, what this is looking to do is any new equestrian facilities at a certain level that are created next to residential, that there's a process for that. That's what we're looking, that's what we're looking to do. So questions have also been raised about adding a paddock or upgrading a facility.

I will say we're working on this on what those thresholds are that would require that and we can discuss that more in the deliberations table. And then it's not our intention to force folks out. So we are listening to the significant number of comments and testimony that we've received. How will comments and testimony be incorporated? So we received those through comments.

A comment summary was created. We are weaving those into the deliberations table, which you'll see now. And then with respect to the equestrian facility code specifically, a group was formed around this. It was mentioned earlier. And there's been two meetings and then there's three subsequent meetings planned where we will work together to draft a two point zero version of this code.

So the next iteration of the deliberations table you'll see that work moving forward as we work towards that. These are several of the highlights, but we can go over more of this as we're breaking down in the deliberations table the specific parts of it. This is the agricultural code. So with the agriculture steering committee and the working group, these are the proposed changes that came from them. And so allowing shipping containers for agricultural purposes, removing the existing code as it relates to the four ounce container, expansion of maximum allowed size building for agricultural use, And then also continues to be something we're working on, you'll see in the deliberations table.

Removing the existing language because it's not currently practiced and trying to find a way when agricultural activities exist, how can there be notification to the neighbors? Notification currently is in code for those who move next to mineral resource overlays or forest resource lands. It does not exist for agriculture. So that's why that change has been made. And so that's what we're starting with right now.

And then we have the three so this is then deliverable number three. We have three reclassification requests. They're proposed to move to the request is for rural industrial or rural commercial. It was presented in the form of a staff report where we use 20 to do our evaluation of that. Each of the recommendations at the end of it, each of the reports and assessment for each request has a findings of fact at the end that summarizes kind of the uniqueness of each application or anything that stood out to us.

When it comes to the Scrobot McCormick, we have a tentative approval recommendation. For the Moran, we have no recommendation at this time. So this one has an active code violation. It also would leave that northern property an island. But we do feel that we are actively working with our code compliance team at DCD and look to work with the applicant to move towards something that's agreeable.

But I will acknowledge that we are looking at this from a zoning perspective only, but we also feel obligated to acknowledge the current situation of the reclassification request. The third one here is Stokes Campbell request to go to rural commercial. And this is a conditional approval. And here we have highlighted in the findings of facts some of the highlights from this one. This one is noteworthy and it was also mentioned in the comments.

It has had three denials in the past due to the critical areas. And during deliberations, we wanna open and look at any of these. Some good maps to look at with respect to this one are are the critical areas maps, are included. And also another good one in all three of these to look at is not only the zoning and what the current zoning that's around it, but also the land use that exists around it. Here we have rural industrial to the south, and we also have a parking ride nearby.

Another thing that we looked at with this is where are these located? Two of the three requests are off of a state highway, and then the third request is off of a county road. So all things that we noted. This one has a conditional approval. Our recommendation includes so these are five parcel.

Our recommendation includes removing the Northeast parcel and then a recommendation to aggregate as it relates to build ability related to the critical areas part of that recommendation. So the public process. Comments were submitted September 2 through September 23. So those have been compiled and a summary has been submitted. And then a comment analysis has been posted.

And then also the testimony was another part of this. So all of that is what we are gathering and listening to and processing through our process. This is an update on the Equestrian Facility Code Working Group. I will say that this has been since this presentation was submitted to you all, this has been updated a little bit. The actual next meeting will be October 15.

And I'll say another change that has been made is these are now posted on the Year of the Rule webpage with the next meetings along with the members of the 10 person equestrian facility code working group that has three representatives from each district. And the tenth position is a representative from the Kitsap Conservation District. So the next meeting has moved to the fifteenth, and then we removed the one on the thirtieth, and then have another meeting after the hearing with the Board of County Commissioners before their deliberations. So all of those are posted on the webpage. The topics that we've worked on is at the beginning of the meeting, and we're continuing to work on that, is representation, transparency, code feedback.

The deliberation matrix is something that we'll bring to them at that meeting next Wednesday. And all of this is working towards equestrian facility code two point o that will be then presented to the Board of County Commissioners. And then moving on to deliberations, and I'll shift over in a moment. So these I broke down the table. I did share the template in advance, and then we've been working to populate this with the highlights of the things that we've heard and that we're actively working on.

So we're working towards yeah, I'll shift over to this in just a moment. And we can begin with questions and deliberations. And I'll open that table and I'll have my computer open and I can open other deliverable documents if you have any questions. I'm going to stop speaking right now and go to open the deliberations document.

Do we have any questions before we start?

Thank you. I actually have a question. I was just curious and this may be more a question for Scott. Why wasn't an agricultural advisory committee established for the county? I understand that there's, like, 30 advisory committees with Kitsap. Why wasn't an agricultural advisory committee ever established?

My understanding is that there wasn't enough willpower to create an agricultural committee in the past. And it might have been due to a number of reasons. I don't have all the reasons, but staff and capacity might have been one. And I think maybe Heather might be able to help answer some of the reasons why one hasn't been established in the past. They are a definitely a staff capacity impact. We know that with our CACs that we run throughout the county. Do you have any insight?

So yes, that's my understanding as well. Is work I think it was a year and a half of work was done putting a proposal together. And then with the end of the comprehensive plan and then kicking this off, I think staff capacity was something that was holding it back. But I think, I do think that this year has demonstrated the need for it. I think staff capacity is a big part of it. I also think too, in looking at the comprehensive plan and the focus on the urban growth areas and other parts, I think it wasn't recognized how much it's needed, but I think it's been demonstrated this year that it's needed.

I appreciate that. It's a question for me because I'm kind of curious as to when you have a comprehensive plan that highlights agriculture as goals and as highlights as you write that, that it seems kind of odd that you wouldn't have an advisory committee to help support your goals in your comprehensive plan.

Yeah. And you may recall, or perhaps not, but in 2016 and then again in 2018, there was a substantial amount of goals and policies added to the comp plan addressing agricultural needs. And there was not a shout out at that time for an agricultural committee or council. And I think the same argument that you can make for agriculture, can also make for forestry and those resource lands as well.

So does the county staff all the other 30 advisory committees?

We do not staff all of them. We are staff support to our citizen advisory committees and other ad hoc committees that we're asked to present to.

Thank you.

I'll also add that agriculture working group steering committee was established at the beginning, but I then will also acknowledge that's not the same as an advisory council that has appointments and those sorts of things.

Other questions?

Thank you so much for the presentation. In our last meeting, we received, I believe it was posed as a question for staff from, I believe it the Port Campbell's Guam Tribe environmental planner regarding development over time in rural areas, and I was just curious if that was followed up on.

Yes, so it was a great question and we did reply to that and Scott replied to that directly. That will be included in the rural lands analysis. Thank you. That's the short answer.

We have Planning Commissioner Shattuck online.

Commissioner Shattuck? Yes, Heather. Thanks for your presentation. Hey, I just want to make sure I understand what we've got going on with the equestrian code. So what you would like the planning commission to do tonight is approve the equestrian code as it is, but then you're going to have three meetings between now and it gets to the commissioners and presumably there'll be changes that we won't have seen.

We we won't be part of that. So I I I wanna make sure I understand what our role is. It sounds like planning commission, you really don't have a role in looking up this final code is just pass this on a hope and a prayer. Would that be is that an unfair characterization?

What we're looking to do today is to identify the areas that we're actively working to improve. And then what you'll see in an updated deliberation table is our staff recommendation of what the changes will be. If we have a recommendation at that time and we're still working on it, it will say in progress and that will be the case. But we so what what we're doing with this deliberations table right now is acknowledging the parts of it that we're working on.

So again, Planning Commission recommendation will be to recommend approval of a code in progress. Is that right?

And I think if I can restate your question, you're asking whether that would be happening tonight. And I think we've suggested that there will be additional meetings.

So our deliberations tonight, Scott, to are for do what? Okay.

I'm sorry. I got a meeting mixed up with the Equestrian Workgroup. I apologize.

So we are proposing that the deliberations for this continue to the meeting on October 21. October 21.

But it sounded like we weren't going to get the final until it went to the commissioners. So we'll never see it.

Nope. You will see. So what will be in this table are the changes that we're going to make that will then be incorporated into a two point zero so that a clean draft is what folks are seeing.

Other questions from the

Yeah, hi. Thank you so much for the presentation and thank you for fielding all these questions. I know there's a lot. One of my questions is on the presentation that you had just given, on page 12 of that, it was it was regarding like standards for site design and operation, and it was to limit impacts to neighboring properties and protect public health, safety, and welfare. One of the questions that I have is, kind of there's a brief thing saying where this is, like, what's driving this equine code change and but is, like, these limiting the impacts, is there a list of impacts that have been noted in the county to neighboring parcels that you can draw on that are substantial enough to say a code needs to be put in place or something needs to change here?

Like what's what are the impacts that are being referenced to those neighboring parcels there?

Yes. So so there are there are references to specific concerns that we're referencing with respect to this. And I'll also add that requests have been made to us for any complaints or cases related to this and we're looking into that right now to look to I guess, summarize any and all over the past five years, but that's a big lift to ask for that. But we are trying to find a way to look at that. But yes, there are specific there is specific feedback that we received that's driving this.

Okay. Will that be made? Are we going to be able to see that feedback? Like for or is that not part of the process for us to have an understanding of what public I would imagine that's public feedback from taxpayers? That's correct. Do we get to understand it to have more of a holistic view of because is this five complaints over five years and that's what's driving this or is 50 complaints over five you know, because that's a big swing.

Right. So I think what we can do is put together, perhaps I don't want like a report but we can put together like a one page document that that summarizes. And I will say because, and this has just made it difficult for us, is when it comes to somebody raising a concern, we feel it's valid and that's what prompted us to do this. It's also delicate in that it sometimes it's like can be blamed on folks for raising the concern and I feel like fear has been spread a bit that anyone who has a concern about this might be afraid to speak up. So that has been and looking in hindsight, I wonder how we could have handled this differently and how we should handle it differently in the future.

And I will say with respect to the Agriculture Advisory Council, I wove in complaints to that because I would like to discuss it openly aside, you know, is this something that is going be elevated to code? And I just will acknowledge that it's tricky.

Yeah. I can see that for sure. I think just to have the continuity of the goals, the vision of your advisory councils, the equine group, is transparency is a word that keeps getting shared and I think that it's not lost on the group and definitely not lost on you that there is a there's some folks that are not in agreement with this right it's been very vocal and I think that the only way to bridge that cooperation is total transparency. And I think that that might help a little bit. It might help me understand it a little bit just as a citizen's rep on that front.

But these are it's a drastic swing in code change, and it's swift and you know? And so I would imagine there has to be something pretty substantial to drive a huge change like that. So that's just kind of a question that I had. And then Scott, did you want to say I'm so sorry. So

I wanted to talk about our code compliance. So our code compliance, the model that the county jurisdictions are similar is we don't go out looking for code compliance issues. What we do track is people who call in with complaints. And we understand that there's a fair amount of complaints, but the way we've tracked those in the past doesn't make it easy to mine and or I should say make it quickly make it a quick effort to mine and present that information to you. But we're working on that.

We you know, I can speak to one that so so ordinarily, I don't get involved in these. Current planning doesn't get involved in these unless there is a resolution that's needed and it's become it's kind of blown up. That, you know, fortunately doesn't happen very often. But the last time that it did where it was a bigger deal involved an arena just on the other side of what's now Safeway by Lowe's just outside of the city limits. And during the days when that arena was in operation, we got lots of complaints from neighbors about their driveways being blocked during events, that there was an adequate maneuvering for trailers, and that there was just compounded problems during busy weekends with that arena.

Now that goes back a ways, but those kind of exemplified some of the issues that we're still hearing today. So I just wanted to share with you that there is a perspective about that. We just don't, you know, our code compliance staff is going out and looking at life safety matters. And we only have three people that are doing that. And so it's not a lot of staff, we're spread pretty thin, But they're not out tracking all these things and meeting with neighbors to justify complaints. We couldn't tell you whether many of the complaints were justified or not. Simply take them in and tell them that it doesn't rise to our tiered list of actions that we go out and pursue.

Sure. Thank you for that, Scott. I do have sorry, commissioners. I just have I have a follow-up question. There's a lot of language in here about this code is not retroactive.

Properties will be grandfathered in. Does the county currently so I know it says this applies to commercial facilities, legal commercial facilities, and your definition of a not commercial facility would be if you're boarding your own horse, training yourself, own people that live at that property. Does the County have a current list, like an exhaustive list of every single facility that boards at least one horse that's not a property owner or trains one person that's not a property owner? And how how would you have the my question around that is who's to say John Smith may might not be on the county's radar, and then this passes, and he says, well, I've been doing this for ten years here. Just because you didn't have me down doesn't mean that I haven't been doing this.

And how do we kind of have quality control with that? And is there a plan for that?

So we have that listed on our deliberations as something we want to look further into. One thing is to be clear in the code, and then also potentially creating guidance documents for the community and for staff on how to interpret that. That has been brought to our attention, the concern about that, and we agree with the concerning question. Because to answer your initial question, no.

Okay. Okay. Yeah.

If I may also, in the years I've been working for the county, we've never adopted code and made it retroactive. So I feel 100% confident that that's not going to be the case here. When it goes to the Board of County Commissioners, they're not going to ask for retroactivity. Now how does that work when you've got an arena that today doesn't need a permit, right? It's considered agriculture.

How do

you demonstrate that? Well, one of the things that Kitsap County also doesn't have that a lot of other jurisdictions have is a legal use or a legal lot or a legal structure determination. So if somebody wants to come in and say, well, I've been here forever. We can say, well, let's look at the records to show whether you have been here forever. And so if you go into our aerial imagery and you see that it was all forested in 2020 and you can say you've existed since 2012, well, we quite clearly have records that show otherwise.

So that's something that's on our work improvement program is to develop a mechanism to identify legal uses, structures and lots that existed prior to a particular date. So that is a weakness. And today, we'd have to rely on a reasonable interpretation of what the picture is showing us, whether people have licenses for what they are asserting as a commercial business. So we are deficient in that. We're probably going to try and copy some other jurisdictions that have a program for that.

Yeah. Thank you, Scott. And then my last is just a quick one on Stokes. Can you remind me the county's recommendation on the conditional of that approval? What was the condition that the county was seeking on Stokes Campbell? I apologize. Didn't mean to

That's okay. No. Know I'm like let me shield. Gears. So the Stokes Campbell, that the one is to remove the Northeast parcel.

Northeast parcel.

And then and then a recommendation to aggregate. Because there's five different parcels. Yeah.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, Scott.

Yeah. And that's a nonbinding recommendation. It's just we feel that their property would be easier to develop if they didn't have lot lines crisscrossing and setbacks they have to

meet. Surely.

Aggregated wipes out all that interior mess.

Absolutely.

I have two other commissioners here. Commissioner Shattuck?

I just want to make sure I understand the county's position here. First, I think the example, Scott, that you gave was actually in the urban or in area behind Safeway and Lowe's is not in the rural, as I recall.

No. Was not a city of Port Orchard issue, it was in fact a Kitsap County rural issue.

Okay. And so it a rural zoning?

Yes.

Okay. It seems to be again, unless the county really has something that says, hey, since 1999, there's been this incredible problem that we've had. If you don't have that information where we make our decision is based on the record, testimony, right, about, hey, here listen, I'm I live next to one of these facilities and it's horrible and it's just awful. We had very, very little testimony about problems. And so unless I miss something, it seems to me that's where we should take our information, isn't it?

Not from, hey, I I think we've had a problem, but we can't really we haven't really tracked it in terms of making a decision that we need to do this.

So if I can respond to that, I think you make very good points. And if that's the recommendation of the Planning Commission, then that gets brought forth to the Board of County Commissioners. But we will try to do our best to give you the examples of problems that we've seen. There are some that are fairly recent, but we'll try and pull together a list of everything that we can to show you just how widespread the issues are or whether they're not as the case may be.

Commissioner Vallee?

Yes. Thank you, Scott and Heather for being here today and for all the work you do. I had a quick question. I guess it's ask to ask Heather. There are a couple references to the Kitsap Conservation District in some of the codes, And I just was one clarification on if if you had reached out to the district to have those included. And that's, I guess, my question to start.

So I reached out to the district to ask about the farm plans and to ask about manure and the management, and it was explained to me. And I expressed at that time that because animal density tables were removed when the agricultural code was adopted in 2016 that we would like to add that back. So I was educated on a bit about how that works and I didn't get an answer back on this is how it should be included more explanation on how it works. So my short answer is no, but I wouldn't say that it wasn't discussed at all. And then I'll also acknowledge that we hear it and we will be removing it. Recommending to remove it.

Okay. Thanks for that clarification. And then I have one additional question on the I guess it's the Moran property with regards to the, I guess, active code enforcement matter. And, I mean, as that I guess, to just cut to the chase is, have you had good response with that property owner to try to, kind of come to some kind of agreement with the county on what was done and or is it are you getting, much response back from them with regards to this compliance matter?

It's actively being worked on. And we have a meeting scheduled with co compliance and with the county attorneys to discuss what that will look like. And but at the same time, you know, as we were doing this and acknowledging what was existing, we are staying in our role and acknowledging that they're doing their role with respect to co compliance. But we are looking to bring these two together and kind of acknowledge each other. Because currently it's rural residential and there's certain allowed uses in that and then the request is to rural industrial.

So that's what we're looking at moving forward. But I will say to answer your question is yes, the applicant is working with the county to address the code violations.

If Okay. Thank you.

If I can just add another way of saying it, is that it might be tempting for the Planning Commission or even the Board to say, we'll approve this if you clean up your site. Well, that's not allowed under state law. We can't do what's called contract rezoning. So the issues have to be disassociated from the cells and what we are suggesting is that we believe the landowner will operate in good faith to remedy the violations, but that is an independent action separate from the request for the redesignation itself.

Thank you.

Two questions here. One, biggest one surrounds capacity for DCD and obviously, a lot of work to be done between now and either the twenty first or mentions the the tenth county commissioner meeting. What is the realistic capacity that DCD and planning has to be able to implement the majority of these changes?

Heather is doing the lion's share of the work, but she does have staff that are supporting her in a number of different ways. And so what will happen is this will become the priority for long range to get this done. And if you've been a part of these year end comp plan actions in the past, you'll note that that's kind of what happens is the comprehensive plan and any amendments there too including development code becomes the priority. Because if we don't adopt in December, then we've got to wait another year to adopt again. Because as you are all aware, I'm sure we have to batch everything under GMA and adopt it all at the same time and usually that's in December.

So this is something that we want to get done. We've been directed to get it done, and so we're following those directions. And all stops we pulled to make sure we get something that we think is beneficial to the Planning Commission and hopefully the public at large.

Can understand and appreciate, obviously, time line. It just seems, I think, what we've heard and what we've seen that if it takes another year, maybe it takes another year is a good way to go about it. Just personal perspective. But I can understand that there's obviously a process you guys have to go through. The second piece of this is kind of curiosity of where, specifically, the equestrian code, where did planning pull or how did they formulate this?

Is it from other counties? Is it collaboration with some other state and federal laws? I mean, where does a lot of this come from? Some of them some of them seem to replicate. Some of them seem to go against other items, the legislation.

So it came from our previously existing code, and then also reviewing other counties and their code related to this. And also looking at the existing conditional use permits that we reviewed too. And so we pulled from that. That's where this came from.

Okay, thank you.

Hi. I have a couple more questions for you. So is there any plans in the work to enact agricultural zoning at all?

So in the chapter, we acknowledge well, we we make reference to the rural lands analysis, which we're proposing to conduct in 2026. And we also make reference to the idea of agriculture overlay. So and that's not that's not converting it to a resource land, but we see that's where it comes into that working land with some protections. And with those protections potentially can come different allowances in code because you're designated that. And we've just started to map that out where those could be, and it has to do with NRCS's prime farmland soils, but also has to do with buffers from existing residential.

So if meets these certain criteria, and we just started to scratch the surface of it, we would propose the idea of an ag overlay as something to help us move forward. So I hope that answers the question, but yes we're continuing to look at it. The decision was made in the nineteen nineties to not have agricultural zoning. So I will say though, I didn't get the sense during this process that that was something with respect to resource lands and the commercial significance as defined by the state that that was the direction that we could go for Kitsap County. But we do feel like there are some mechanisms such as an overlay that might be possible at this time.

Thank you. I'm just kind of curious too about this document, this Kitsap County strategic agricultural plan and inventory from 2011. It speaks a lot about agricultural zoning back in 2011.

That's right.

So I'm just trying to understand that span of time as to it was a priority then, and here we are today.

Yes. And Diane Fish from the Conservation District presented to the Planning Commission in, I believe it was May, talking about just that. So it's something that we continue to look into, and that's part of the rural lands analysis. And we would like the Agricultural Advisory Council to be part of those conversations. We have a lot of baseline data and a lot of ideas for tools, and then it's a matter of to have that conversation and what could that look like. And also are folks volunteering into that? Are people interested in that? And what would it mean? So yeah, those are things that we would like to continue to evaluate.

Thank you. Hi.

Thank you. I had a couple so just to clarify, just so that I understand. So in this deliberation matrix, you have listed I'm going focus on equine facility, because it's our favorite topic. So it listed all of the that you're pretty much looking into every single comment. And so therefore, I have questions if you weren't. But if you are, then I'm guessing that we wait until the twenty first before we ask our questions.

That's correct. I think, yep, because we are actively looking at the recommendations for changes to this.

Okay. And so my one comment, just after listening to everybody, that I was curious about, to kind of add on to the comments, is when you say

Retroactive. Thank you.

Retroactive. When people sell their land, then does that keep carrying on? And and just how would that work? And it just feels like it could get really messy. And so that would be my concern versus I have many other questions, but obviously we're going to see those answers on the twenty first.

Yes, those land entitlements do carry on to subsequent buyers. And so in one scenario, maybe your property is more valuable because you have that entitlement. It's the same with conditional use permits. Once a landowner gets approval for something, if another landowner comes in and buys that property, they get to continue forward with the same operations. There is a period of time where if somebody has a legal non performing use of record and it's abandoned for a period of time under our law which is more generous than other jurisdictions, you have two years.

Other jurisdictions say you've got a year to reestablish that use, we've established a two year period. So we're little more generous in that capacity. And part of the reason for that was the uncertainty of sale of property during the recession, and we felt that was a good move to make.

And then on a side note, and you even listed it in your slide presentation, but it was one of my questions. When I read the Ag Code stuff, it never states the actual allowable size of the building that without obtaining a building permit. Like, it says that you're looking into it. So it's just as a note that maybe we're seeing to see that on the twenty first, but I just wanted to note that.

Yeah. The note so the request was made and I wanted to include it so that we could continue to entertain it. And what I had in there was discuss it with the building fire and safety and I have.

And so you know what the answer is now?

I do. So it will be not be expanding at this time. It will remain as it is. That's our recommendation.

And what is it? Because it didn't

say 864, I believe, feet. Yep. And so that's square feet? Yep. That's the existing code.

800 and but then in that when I read your red lines, so you'll add where that code is or you'll Yes. You'll add wording to make that cleaner?

Yes. I apologize. It should strike out. Yep. And if it doesn't if it doesn't do that, then that's an error. It. Yeah. It should strike out what's existing, and then we had it open because we weren't sure how far and Right. We've had the discussion.

And so now you're going to

Yeah. Our recommendation is to not change it at this time.

Okay. I don't know where that page is right now. Commissioner Shada. Oh, here it is.

Yeah. I'm sorry. Mr. Chair, just one other quick question. We had a lot of testimony with frustration over the public process. So as I understand, Heather, we're going to start deliberations tonight. You're going to have some meetings and we're going come back for deliberations on the twenty first.

I have

And Sir, I where does the public get to talk about all the things that have changed between today and the twenty first? How do we get any feedback from the public about that?

Sir, I have a recommendation. Anybody else before I start?

Well, I do have a question.

Go.

Well Are you Are you okay if I ask a question, Richard? I don't want to cut off your time.

Go ahead.

Okay. Just my one last question before your proposal, Alan, is this the equine group that has been put together, my understanding is there's nine nine representatives, three from each district and one rep from Kitsap Conservation District. How did this how did that come to be? Were these were people able to apply for the opportunity to represent their district and to speak on behalf? Were they appointed by folks? Like, who decided who was going to be the voice for those districts?

So this is a working group, and that type of application process is the process for an advisory council. This is a working group, and we had about 30 folks volunteer, whether it was from the Kingston CAC presentation or the open house. We had 30 folks come and volunteer. And then at the first meeting, so it was potentially going to be a 30 person working group. I was already aware that that's not a very functioning working group.

And so it was in several people also messaged me about that. So what we did at the beginning was talk about what a working group look like, and we whittled it down from there. Together with the group of decided on that three representation. People raised their hands on who wanted to volunteer. I would say there was so there was self volunteering, there was nominating, and then there was also, yeah, nominating of other folks. And then at the second meeting that we had, we went through it again and shared what each equestrian specialty or circumstances, whether it's they recently purchased land, they were looking looking to sell land and how this impacted them. And we all agreed that there was a good cross section amongst the group that there was a good cross section of representation from that.

Okay. Just one more time. One of one of the original sources of the 30 was a a Kingston advisory group. You said something about Kingston So

during my during the presentation during the outreach process, I presented to several CACs, but the Kingston one is where we had a question representation there. And so two folks from specifically from that presentation asked about getting a working group together to move forward. My intention was to share, to discuss the idea with the agriculture working group steering committee, but with their request during that meeting that pushed that forward. And so then I brought it I made the request at the open house and folks followed up with me either at that meeting or afterwards saying that they wanted to be a part of that. And so that group of about 30 people who volunteered through those two spaces, mostly at the open house, then attended that first meeting on September 18.

Okay. Is it I don't know. I guess I was gonna say, is it known who these representatives are for each district? And so that way the public knows who's who their voices that's speaking on behalf of their equine facility knows that that's a representative speaking on behalf of their property, their facility.

So we discussed in the meeting on October 2 as we're working to establish this together. I asked about that because I know that is a concern. And now the list of folks who represent are posted on the year of the rural web page. Okay. And so and then we will continue to take steps to create that transparency using the webpage and in discussions with the group. Agenda is now posted. They're reviewing the notes and making any suggestions for changes. And I will say in a working group it's not so formal like that. But I am taking the extra steps that would be part of an advisory council in this because I understand the importance of it.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. One of the things that has not been brought up is where did this all come from? And that happens to be the Washington Right to Farm Act, RCW 7.48.30 to three twenty. If you go to three zero five, it has got some very important paragraphs for you to consider. I will read some of them.

Agricultural activities conducted on farmland and forest practices, if considered consistent with good agricultural and forest practices and established prior to the surrounding nonagricultural and non forestry activities are presumed to be reasonable and shall not be found to constitute a nuisance unless the activity or practice has substantial adverse effect on public health and safety. An agricultural activity that is in conformity with such laws and rules shall not be restricted as to hours of the day or day or days of the week without during which it may be conducted. Agricultural activities must be able to adapt new technologies and diversity into new crops and new products if the agricultural industry is to survive and the agricultural lands are to be conserved. That tells me that if I want to put do a new product, I don't want to go through another ACIP. I don't want to do that.

I don't want to restrict the hours, and I don't want to come forward with the ordinance that violates state law. I was interested to see that the document that you gave us today for us to do our deliberations on is dated February. There

have

been many meetings since February. None of those things got marked into it. The committees, the people had a meeting on the fifteenth doesn't count. I think it's very important well, other thing that you don't have here, you didn't tell us, is there's a petition at county with 131 signatures on it that say exactly the things that are in here and why they needed to have public participation for the equine area. I'm the other thing that bothers me is this document, which we were supposed to be voting on for deliberations, was handed to me ten minutes before the start of the meeting.

That's not enough time for me to consider anything. All of those said, I will entertain a motion to postpone the deliberations until they get their act together and give us a product that we could work with.

Mr. Chair, would you like us to respond? No.

No clapping, please.

Mr. Chair, would you like us to respond to your comments? No. Okay.

I motion to extend deliberations to the October 21 meeting.

I second. May not be enough.

Sorry. I I motion to postpone deliberations to the October 21 meeting to continue deliberations.

I second.

I second. All in favor? Done? So

I just wanted to add, in addition, so for all the documents and for the chapter that was prepared, I personally did have additional comments not related to a lot of what's been discussed tonight. We did receive comments from additional representatives in other areas and really or in regard to the year of the rule chapter. And so I just wanted to say that I was prepared to make those comments and represent those, but I will hold them until next meeting.

Thank you.

That brings us to general comment period number two. Anybody in the audience want to talk?

Hello. My name is Jessie Olson. I am one of the nine on the working equitation group or working equestrian group. I was on the meeting Thursday night. I zoomed in.

And I don't want to speak for others in the group, although we have all been in contact and have all talked since the meeting, and we were all incredibly disappointed on how that meeting went. I'm very thankful for your questions and your comments because ours were similar, and we also didn't get answers. Rafe, who I had not been familiar with before, had come in on Zoom at the beginning of the meeting and made some comments that I felt were interesting to set forward in that meeting, such as there had been threats to people he did not want to comment on who, which was understandable. People's privacy is important. He just said social media, and then we were respectable people picked in the group.

And I thought that was almost inappropriate on how that started. And then he also brought up, because one of the things that has been asked many, many times since September 3 in the comments, the questions, and the public standings was, were equestrians questioned in this? And he stated that in February and March, equestrians were reached out to, but that that was all he would state. He didn't give a time period. He did not give if they were equestrian center holders or corporate, any business, or if it was individual equestrians.

There wasn't a timeline, there wasn't how many times they were reached out to, and we were told that that was the end of that statement. None of us felt comfortable to question that further. As well as the agenda, we went through from five to 7PM all of two bullet points with minimal answers. And when we were asked towards the end of 7PM if the meeting could continue, it was a resounding no from Heather and Scott because by then Rafe had also gone offline. He got offline about twenty five minutes within the meeting.

We just felt like nothing was actually talked about, that there were minimal resolution. One thing that I thought was interesting that you asked about was comments. They did bring up that with over 800 comments, only I believe it was 1.9% was pro for the equestrian changes, and there was want to say it was nine to 11% were other, and then the rest was against equestrian changes, which is a very large number. So I know that they have been going through the comments. When we did ask in the last five years if there had been complaints, they said that there's tons of complaints and that they could not actually go through those complaints or they hadn't yet.

I find that interesting. With AI usage today, you can use many words to go through history and find those complaints and would not give us a number for that. So again, after the meeting on Thursday evening, and a majority, like all of us in the group, have talked privately over the weekend, and we were all incredibly disappointed with the answers and the lack of information that has happened up to this point as a working equestrian group. Thank you.

Other comments?

Hi. My name is Anna Dukes. I'm also a member of the equestrian working group. And I'm just asking for clarity on the retroactive part. I've also emailed this to Heather. I know she's busy and probably hasn't had a chance. That was just yesterday. But the retroactive part, I'm assuming this will fall under chapter seventeen, five seven zero, nonconforming uses, structures, and use of structure. Is that correct? Or I guess I can't yeah. And in here, says that nonconforming uses and structures can't be expanded. And I want to know how that relates to the Right to Farm Act and expansion of products.

That be a subject for your working group to discuss and bring forth what you mutually agree on.

Okay. But yeah, I think basically the way this has all gone down, there's a huge lack of trust between the equestrian community and the county. And this trust us, you'll be grandfathered in is not satisfying to us. And we need more time to understand exactly what this title means and how this could affect our facilities in the future.

That's why we're sending it back.

Thank you.

Other comments? Hi,

my name is Tina Meakins. We have the Whole Horse Place in Port Orchard. It's a nonprofit that rescues old horses and traumatized kids. So my question again is retroact what's that word? Retroactive. That's not written in the codes, it's just spoken of. And if they're going to make anything grandfathered in and retroactive and they change the codes, I would like that written in. That it is retroactive.

For you guys to agree on.

Okay. And then my second thing is is I can account for one of the complaints in the 500 that you said you had. It was my neighbors, and it was our manure storage, it was a viable complaint. We were doing the best we could. But when then we got the Kitsap Conservation District out immediately after that complaint was filed, and we fixed it. And the Kitsap Conservation District put in a manure storage bin that was it's probably 30 feet from our property line. They put it in. They paid for it. And I wonder how many of those complaints that you've gotten that have been addressed and fixed. Maybe

there's a

lot that have been, because we don't wanna we don't wanna make our neighbors mad. So we depend on our neighbors good. You know, they need to like us for us to prosper there. So they do now. Anyway, I just want to know how many of those complaints have been fixed. Thanks.

Other comments?

Hi. Hello. I had a few, like, two questions, mainly about, first off, about the concerns about the effects of horses on property and, neighboring facilities and why we didn't include Equine Land Conservation Resource, which is a big organization in The US that helps with this and helps deal with all these issues. And I feel if they weren't include if they were included, it would give a better perspective on how we can fix from a course view, and times of operation. And I I wanted to talk about times of operation again as stated that it is in, the right to farm act, but it's also if we are going to establish this and create a seven to eight working range, will there be per chance like financial compensation for horses that are injured without that time period because that wasn't voted in from equestrians themselves and that was voted in from outside parties that they are going to be willing to stand up to the consequences that come from that of horses getting injured, of buildings or facilities being injured because of or being yeah, from not having people there to pay attention to the consequences and stuff that is happening.

Thank you.

Last chance here. Online. Thank

you again for letting us talk again. My name is Rachel Mondell. I'm here in front of you again. I just was wanting to follow-up and I'm glad hear that you're going to deliberate some more and have more consideration for the new committee that's coming in. I just was wondering what the likelihood of having all the new rules from the year of the rule as far as what is concerned with the horse draft being thrown out because a lot of them properties I'm trying to again, like I addressed last time, I'm trying to find and buy a property, but with the taxes and the fines and the fees, my dad tried.

But with the forest rules that are already in existence, it is very difficult to even get a horse place started. My biggest concern, again, with Clark County and Pierce County, we're having issues already. I have friends there that have said a lot of worrying things about retroactively going back on their word and not having it grandfathered in anymore. I'm very concerned that will happen here. Also, as a home buyer, hopefully someday, a property buyer and trying to restart a farm, this is very pertinent to me.

Any property we've been looking at, it has a lot of wetland issues. Obviously, with horses, we don't want them on wetlands. We're very careful with that. We've talked to the conservation district over the years and trying to make sure that we always manage our wetlands. And the use of the term paddocks is really questionable because for our horses, we wanna keep them safe.

The best thing you could possibly do would be to fence your entire property around, and that would completely all the rules that you mentioned, feet from your property line having paddocks, that kind of terminology between paddocks and pastures is kinda confusing. I would consider it a pasture if you're fencing in the whole area, but, obviously, if it's a foot in requirement, that's gonna make it impossible between wetlands and roads. We don't have perfect square or rectangular properties in this county or even in this really in the state, but, it makes it really difficult to have I know somebody did a great, like, AI project where they showed how many of the acreage you would actually be able to use if it was even the five feet in. It just you wouldn't think it would sound like a lot, but in a in a regular shaped properties like most of them are in Kitsap, it'd be almost impossible to use, especially if the 200 foot one is crazy. But like the person before me said, we really try to get along with our neighbors because with we're very as a horse community, we love our neighbors, and we want everyone to have love horses as much we do.

We we think they're healing. We think they're an amazing beings, and we want everyone to have the same experience that we do. So we're all passionate about sharing our love of horses with everyone, and I'd like to see that continue in Kitsap. It's been kinda concerning that this was brought forward, and I think we'd all like to really know where that came from beyond the one incident. I think that'd be really important to all of us to see if we can get some reasonable rules or just have them eradicated completely in the new draft. I would appreciate it. Thank you.

Online.

Christine Civalletti.

Hi, again. Thank you for letting me speak. First of all, I want to start by thanking the commissioners for their very thoughtful questions. I can tell that you paid attention in the twenty third meeting, and you tried your best to do some research with what you had. I would like to say that I put in a public records request for all complaints, case notes, files, how the cases were resolved. I'm still waiting for that information. So I don't have it. You don't have it. We don't know how many complaints there are. And like your previous speakers said, how they've been resolved successfully.

Also, wanted to say I do appreciate the working group and them volunteering their time and working on this for the community. However, I'm really disheartened with the lack of transparency of how these working groups got started. The two meetings that they said that people volunteered with, we all know that equine community, for the most part, were not familiar with these meetings, were not aware of these meetings, didn't have an opportunity to volunteer to be on this working group. The last thing I will say is the legal non conforming, right, what they are calling grandfathering. Legal non conforming issue bothers me Because if you've done anything with legal nonconforming uses, you know that much of it, when it comes to changes of the buildings, stopping the use, ceasing the use, I know that mister Diener said two years, and that's a good time frame.

But a lot of it is left up to the discretion of the director or the discretion of staff when it comes up. And that can be twisted in many different ways based on the viewpoint of who's ever in charge at the time and whether or not they think that the person is going to comply. So there's a lot of ambiguity that should be cleaned up and actually codified so that it's clear going forward. Because if this code comes into place, mister Diener, myself, you as the planning commissioners, we might not be around when this comes up again, and somebody is gonna get abused when and they're gonna use that term legal nonconforming, and you violate it, and therefore, you you you lose your right to your use. So thank you again for your thoughtful questions.

Thank you for postponing your deliberations, and I would really, really, really like to see the public availability of the working group meetings. I was disappointed to hear that there was a Zoom availability for one of the members, but yet the public wasn't invited. That that tends to not be compatible with not being able to include the public. So, again, that's not building the trust of the people that you're serving here. Thank you very much. Have a good night.

Next.

We have Anne next.

Hi. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Hi. My name is Annie Braddock. I'm also on the working group. For disclosure, one of the things that I keep hearing, which I'm gonna say again, is has to do with the complaints. First of all, I appreciate everybody on the committee for all of their thoughtful questions. It it feels kinda validating. Sometimes you wonder everything you're concerned about. You know, is this crazy? But it's nice to hear that we're not the only ones concerned about this. Some of the thing one of the things that I'm most concerned about is the complaints.

What led to this? We've asked in a working group, starting on 918 for a list of complaints, for more specific complaints, and we've yet to receive them. I know they've acknowledged it's hard to get them together. If it's so hard to get them together, I'm concerned how much like, if if we can't get them together, how much has actually all of the complaints as a whole been looked at? The second thing I have to say is that I'd love to see these complaints broken down as to how many complaints are related to one property versus another property, and how many properties in total have been complained about.

And like everybody else has said, one of the most important things is that how many of these complaints have been resolved based on current codes and resources that are available that Kitsap County provides. All of that, I think, is incredibly important data as we move through to see if this new code is, frankly, necessary. I found that a lot of the things we're addressing is frankly, can be addressed through other parts of the code. Thank you very much for your time and, your energy on this.

Next.

Lauren Rogers.

Hi. Yeah. Great to speak with you guys. Thanks for making time. I think that I just share a lot of the similar fears about this transparency here. At the original planning meeting, I specifically asked, you know, if it what brought about this change? And the answer to that was complaints about a facility. And I asked for clarification. I said one facility, and the answer was yes. And that's very concerning.

And it's interesting how I hear the verbiage now, and it sounds like it's now including more than one facility. And there's been a lot of questions about transparency and release of this information so that, you know, maybe we can feel more comfortable about this. People want to feel comfortable about the logic behind what's going on because as an equestrian, it doesn't seem like there's much logic in these zoning codes. It also doesn't seem like the zoning codes were created to answer any of these questions, know, these complaints. I'm sorry.

Because my question is, it's like, how many how many years would it take to actually create the changes for these complaints on these facilities? You know? How do these complaints relate to each one of the amendments? I'm having a real hard time following the logic on this. Another question that I asked was there was a group that was mentioned, and it said that the equestrians were involved, and that happened in April, and I asked about the names for transparency again.

And I just keep hearing, We'll get back to you, and that really creates a lot of concern for all of us, is that we'll get back to you, because we feel like we have a deadline. You know? And my question is, with all of this going on, does this not merit more time? There's lack of transparency and limited public outreach, and that's very clear. These are substantial changes, and although we keep hearing the word grandfathered, I guess that just makes us ask, like, what are we leaving for our children if this is the quality of the work that we're putting into our zoning codes. Thank you.

Next.

Helen Jones.

Hello, everyone. I'm Helen Jones, and I'm also one of the members of the working equestrian facility group. And first of all, I really wanna thank the planning commission for all of your really thoughtful questions. And I feel like you have a really rational outlook on this, and I just I very much appreciate that. And one thing I just wanted to add that, I don't know if it's been brought up before, and that is one thing to consider is the really long range effects if some of these code codes that are proposed come into place, in particular, the 200 foot setbacks.

But, basically, over time, as properties change hands and people move out, over over decades, there's gonna be way less active equestrian facilities in Kitsap County if those if those setbacks are put into place. So I just want the commission to be the planning commission to be aware of that, that the impact would be very far reaching. Thank you.

I see no additional virtual attendees with their hand raised at this time.

With that, I will close the general comment period for the good of the order.

I'll just put out an additional thank you to everyone who continues to show up in person and online to share their comments. They are greatly appreciated. I know your time is so valuable. So I appreciate the time and effort and research and the heart rate of participating in this process. So thank you. And I wanted to put out an additional thanks for those who have shared their stories related to mental health and their own experiences and the power of your community in supporting, especially amongst the youth. And I appreciate you all sharing those very personal stories. I know that can be hard to do in a public forum. So thank you, and we hear you.

Online?

Commissioner Bleed?

Hello. Thank you. And, yeah, I want to say thanks to everybody who's taken part in the public process. As you guys know or might not know, all the commissioners up here just serve essentially for free for a small, very small stipend. Mhmm. And we're just trying to do what's best for the county and the planning. And I know this equestrian issue has taken up quite a bit of the time of the year of the rural. To commissioner Hampton's comment earlier, there are other things that I would I would also like to address. It's it's obvious it's obvious to us that this is a big issue and a big concern for many people in the county. So it's great that you're taking part.

However, I also want to thank DCD. I think there is a lot of there is a lot of lack of transparency, this and that. I I don't believe that's true. You have a great staff with this county that is understaffed and overworked, and this is not the only issue that they work on. So please have some grace with them on this.

They're not trying to hide anything. So I just wanna say that because I didn't I thought I was I'm in favor of moving this deliberations to the next meeting, but I did not vote for it because DCD wanted to respond and was not allowed to have that response. So I just we just need to have more grace with each other. We're you know, let's just kind of dial it back a little bit. And but that being said, it's so great to see the community involved in the public process. That's how we create a great society. So thank you, everybody.

Thank you very much for coming. This is the biggest groups we've had on this issue. We really appreciate you coming. Thank you. With that, I close the meeting.