Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

no neither way yes or no I have open video I went ahead and opened it so we are live Do you want the phones open, Tamara?

She's in charge of child protection for Oregon, Utah with the state government. Take your kids away from abusive parents. If you are the host, press die now. Other than those who have not arrived yet, please wait. That's very important. Well, she got two degrees, one in gerontology and one in math. Please enter your pin followed by your pound. Thank you. You are the ultimate participant in the conference. Maybe next to Craig. That looks okay.

Okay, let's call our Planning and Zoning Workshop for June 11, 2026 to order at 1.36 p.m. Commissioners in attendance are Bateson, Foster, Harwood, Summer, and Bowles. Community development, also in attendance, Community Development Director Michael Hardy, Manager Ben Turbin, Administrative Secretary Jocelyn Penney, and Administrative Manager Lita Rivas. Also in attendance is County and Civil Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Pat Radin, and Deputy Director of Operations Craig Davidson. Did I miss anything? okay uh so any changes to the agenda okay uh then uh if i could get a motion for approval uh the um may 7th 2026 minutes from our public hearing and um the workshop

All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Perfect. All right, so we'll go to our business today, which is actually, I forgot to say, that Aaron Pauls is here for my CJ Alliance.

Yeah, you're a guest of honor.

All right, so I'll hand it over to you. Thank you. It's good to see you all again. It's been a while. Today I just kind of wanted to give this pretty much the same update that I recently gave the Horry County Commissioners and also that of Waterways this morning. And where we're at with the public engagement is we're kind of square in that phase of the comprehensive plan. And what's coming next. Reap overview, why are we doing this? you know for your purposes that a comprehensive panel plan is essentially the legal basis for adopting zoning and other regulations but also forms budgets and capital improvement needs and that's particularly going to be relevant for a lot of parks improvements that may come through this may come through this effort because at the same time we're doing a parks and waterways pastor plan which really will be a component of the comprehensive plan but also be able to stand on its own We have our first in-person engagement event at the Spirit Lake Community Heart and Soul event And we've got a few others planned. One for Portland coming up on July 17th, the Colorado Rake Festival event. Then on July 25th, we'll be in Worthing. And at their picnic in the park. And then in Harrison for, on the next day, 26th, and at least Nick will be there, and other staff, myself, and Mark Clark. We've done a series of interviews with service providers. We have a couple more to go. We provided an online survey. Hopefully you guys have seen that. Maybe you'll get the word out for it. And our outreach efforts thus far included press releases, last, it was pretty successful, which I'll show you in a minute. And mail flyer with tax assessments, which we're starting to get as people open their mail, we're starting to get additional responses from. So, I'm going to start with the service provider interviews that we had, which we had some very rich, in-depth conversations with management, and Pat, you were one of our interviewees, County Commissioner or two, fire department, et cetera. Of course, as residents, we heard primarily that the rapid pace of growth is causing concern across an array of levels, an array of topics. Loss of open space, cost of living. These are the things that we already know from data, but it's good to have that confirmation from the engagement we've been doing so that we know what direction to go. Water quality and long-term supply. And one concern was the potential loss of heavy industrial and sensitive development generally, since our rural segment can thread to the aquifer long-term. Growth, outpacing capacity, without funding to address the gaps. And that could mean destructures including It was coming up in the AY discussion with the cities. Wildfire, obviously a huge concern, particularly for newer residents who may not be as prepared, we were hearing. So potential mitigation measures, physical space, secondary access, of course, water supply, more structures as we know, especially with the storage structures, require more fire support. And we also heard concerns about dispatches. That was kind of the only one we heard about, service providers. Of course, transportation concerns, we hear that, we've heard that a lot, and lots of feedback we've received, particularly the Miami Quarter and the north-south connections, which ITD is, you know, things happen, the pace of improvements happen pretty slow relative to the pace of growth and people moving here. And the other side of the coin to affordability, of course, is wages. And as you've seen in the data so far, you've got a lot of healthcare-related jobs. Other than that, it's a lot of tourism and retail, principally. And there were some good thoughts about ways to diversify that economy. And we talked a little bit about that in the survey results. And as you all I know are very familiar with when it comes to implementing some of this, you know, potential vision and goals and policies, we're going to be property rights versus, you know, road density development versus affordability versus water quality, world character, open space, right? And sometimes some of those things can compete with each other, right? So from our interviews with the service providers, the takeaway for us was that coordinated strategies do align all these things, land use infrastructure, environmental protection, economic development, and recreation, should be considered thoughtfully and carefully in the goals, policies, and actions that we work with you on to craft. So we've had over a thousand responses to our survey. And the visitors over at Times when we see that big spike was the emails that we sent out. We were able to get, the county was able to provide a pretty massive email list of about 20,000 And I was thinking maybe another reminder to film is a map, but also other strategies we may want to deploy in the field. And why I say that is because it's also important to consider who's responded so far out of that 1,000 folks so far, which is a pretty good number for a service, by the way. We were hoping to have that goal before we came to you today, so we get a real sense of where we might be going. 62% in the unincorporated county, 34% within a city in the county. The vast majority own the property, and most who responded are a two-person household. That's 54%. Also, most, about 72%, do not have children in their household. So what that likely means is a lot of retired folks are trying to get their hands cut off service, I suppose. But it's also important to consider when we look at the broader feedback we get. No big surprise, we like to ask what folks like to ask about The lake, of course, will be the local character, recreational aspects, et cetera. Top insurance concerns, transportation, followed closely by farmland, preservation of farmland, open space, working lands, housing, of course, and water quality supply will go down from there. Priorities to address, we've heard so far from this suggested survey, So we need an acquisition for large conservation areas or parks that can be active. Water, transportation, wildlife habitat, recreation, and see how some of these, you know, can move together under a comprehensive plan. How important is it that David Bunkle pays its fair share? And that is so that residents aren't stuck with the burden of subsidizing community development as it comes to the county which it has pretty rapidly. We asked about housing needed in cities. and down from there, and then versus rural areas. There's lots, farmsteads, small lot, people coming in. And then some, you know, 32% mentioned foster development. Can you guys tell me, I didn't mean to ask you guys, do you have a conservation certification

Not lately. Not often. In the 2000s we started a lot more, but basically since the crash. I think we also removed an incentive, a bonus density incentive, and so people haven't been as interested.

And if we go into policy development and future land use considerations, given the input, you can go any more into why. But that's a way, if the region commissioners are unfamiliar, it's a way to achieve a certain amount of units by preserving areas, preserving all the space and clustering things together. for a better wildfire response. There's other factors you can look at too, but it can be a safer development type for wildfire and something you can more easily address through a fire response. What kind of economic sector should grow in order to diversify the economy and bring out wages for more graduate people? Small businesses, widely supported, agriculture, manufacturing, also health sciences, technology, which is where you're strongest are now, along with health care. It's kind of the bottom of what might be prioritized for the future in order to achieve that. Okay, switching to some more parks, waterways, recreational space, and trails. Expansion of access being very important, somewhat important, by a significant majority. Barriers to recognition use, motor traveling, parking. Any of you feel like a little? Good afternoon. I'm just going over preliminary survey results.

Oh, excellent.

We also asked a question about regional trail connectivity. You said very important, somewhat important. Probably the back of most people's minds is regional trail and other pathways like that and mapping exercises and some of the results from that. Um, so, uh, and then just a question, uh, for what types of trails? I mean, I used to score highest, lower highest, uh, when you walk by through the trail and then down. To be noted that, you know, the trails, and certainly Nick Snyder and the Park and Waterways group is familiar with this, the motorized trails and registration of motorized vehicles paid for a lot of the trails that are used for a driving process as well. Okay, kind of a funner part of the survey was the ability for folks to map things. And you can see a little key in the bottom right there. The darker the area, the more people we heard from. All the way up the line might just be one person in the bottom there. But we've got pretty good response rates so far to these maps because it's part of the functionality survey. as well, trailhead priorities, shelter priorities, playground priorities, something that's kind of a new expansion of consideration of parks and waterways, because it's a water place. And I know that they, I think it's upland, you know, developed parks in the county, certainly in the city there are, but not within the county. It's something that may be considered by that board going forward as we Here's one that I thought you might kind of understand where the state's priorities are. Keep in mind that the yellow dot, that could just be one person, you know, putting a dot out there. But you see where it's clustered, and it's where the biggest pressures in growth are currently, around those halls, and it's the investment. The map to the right is not part of the survey, but it's one that we put together based on some new information from the aquifer district. Well, it's here, it's in the district report, so I can present on that at home. That's the sensitive aquifer resource areas. Those are areas kind of like where vulnerabilities and discharges have maybe So preserving the quality of the aquifer. And the Northwest Land Conservancy reached out. But we thought it might be interesting to see, well, if you have something now for kind of priority areas that you'd like to work in, like supporting grant applications or, you know, other steward, you know, conservation areas, where would they be? And would they align with what the community is thinking and what would help to protect the office? So these are all kinds of things that we consider going forward. And these are our paid pathway priorities on the left, and unpaid trail priorities on the right. There's probably more on recreation, where it says paid pathway, but also potentially for transportation purposes, thinking about, you know, the structural technologies that he likes. Any other questions?

Oh, sorry. those pathways are they ones that currently exist, or these are ones where they want them to be that don't exist?

Yeah, so the survey has, these are all just input, like you can draw your pathway, where would you like a pathway, and anybody can draw one, and this is kind of showing where people have drawn pathways, both from big paths or just which has also come up as a concern for transportation generally. So overall, a lot of community support for, again, this isn't necessarily weighing on how we get there. There's so many changes, right? But generally, there's a lot of support for preserving open space and working lands, protecting water, recreational access, Widespread support for fair share development costs, so that capacity can keep up with growth and not burden existing residents. Overall manageable vision, so balancing fundamental stewardship, infrastructure capacity, and quality of life. This is where we are at in the schedule right now. Again, we've gotten through a lot of our interviews, pretty good feedback from our surveys so far, the first survey. We would also be at the fair in August. This next kind of iteration of engagement, we would like to get people a little bit more attuned, get some ideas to actually implement what we've heard so far. And Mike and Dan and I are gonna talk with some potential draft vision statement and some potential advice, goals, and policies for you to consider that you might be able to take to your July events and get some feedback. And so really we're at that point where we're going to start to shift into actually extracting stuff to address what we've heard and what the data says that we've already seen going forward. And these are revised, some of the key findings. This is a board we like to add on hand at these events so that we can all kind of refer back to where we are today. With that, I haven't answered any questions. Mike, did I miss anything so far? No, that's a lot. You're continuing with your interview, so who else are you looking to interview? We may, Mike and I have just discussed these strategies, maybe to help each of the cities a little bit, or the cities have, you know, that's really with regard to AOI, but there's kind of a parallel process going on with that, which we're doing from today. So maybe we'll follow up regarding that. But that's primarily, yeah. 90%, I would say, of the limitation that we see.

And the planning on closing this online surgery on June 22nd. Right. Close that part of that engagement and then possibly a second surgery in August?

Yes. Let's go back to that. The second and the two

So I'm sorry, that's the difference between the surveys?

Yeah, so this first survey was kind of very broad. Big picture. Yeah, now that we've gotten feedback, now the idea that we're going to be coming back to you and start working on some scenarios for how to translate what we've heard, what we know, into some policies and some future land use standards, which is a direct correlation to future government, right?

on your survey, are all of them Coopney County residents or part of Spokane County residents, wherever?

So vast majority were in Coopney County, but some weren't. But I think we would say about 30%, 34% so far answered that they were, at least at the top left there, that they were in a city within the county. But 62% So they're in the uncorporated county. And then, you know, a small percentage outside of Idaho. And then a very small percentage inside of Idaho. So is it like property landowners that own property? Could be. Or they just happen to be visiting. And like we can count on property landowners.

So 2.6% were outside Idaho? 2.5.

So we're gonna kind of go back to where we got the most success. You can see, I kind of didn't mention, you can see just from about a week ago, we've got another little spike, and that's because we, and I think that is people opening their mail for tax assessments because we included a flyer in all the tax assessments come out, so. to see some more responses from that. And as we were talking about, maybe another email blast. But also, there are creative ways that we can get more of an entire industry to respond. People, families, even the youth, that they might be helpful if we can figure out something quickly. Triple play.

QR code?

Yes.

So it has the QR code on it.

Yeah. But I mean like posting it along the bike trail or boat ramp or where people were actually using the facility.

well yes and it depends on how long we want to run that survey statistically is there some previous information in that

like he said we had 500 responses and perhaps more now since the last time we heard we have about a thousand right now oh great so previously was that pretty much like that gave us a good idea of the community you know what i'm saying that's a good number like how many is that is that Does that work for us or do we need more?

Yeah, I mean, the more the better. But I think, as Mike said, it's a pretty good number for surveys.

Pretty good sampling and gives us a good idea of the community, what the community's thinking.

Now, it's not, you know, a statistically valid survey. It's kind of a whole other animal that's very rare to do in the public.

there's 50,000 of those that went out. We had to see what kind of spike we get as a result of that. And we sent those just to the non-incorporated property owners. There's been directive to make sure that it's not being skewed by the city residents

So next step for us is more on the policy direction. Yes, start thinking about this. We're going to, you know, once we close the survey, we'll kind of wrap up where we are. We'll have a summary of that. So that means we've got a final survey summary. You kind of have an overview. And I think at the June 25th meeting, we're hoping, it's going to be a short time frame, It's three days. Yeah. Well, that's your next bit of a meeting, right? We're hoping to start chewing on some, you know, maybe at least a vision statement, you know, to chew on. And, you know, we've done some work on... and have some discussion and so, whether we'll be able to come up with a whole new set, probably not by then for you to consider, but maybe, you know, maybe some of it we can try to tackle.

That's a public hearing.

Well, yeah, we're away from, oh, okay.

Yeah, I think if you guys have the time, and since you were already meeting, we could have that two-week agenda.

I wanted to talk to you guys about that if that was enough. not controversial by some of the other nationalities. It should be pretty quick. We haven't heard much in opposition or any comments for that matter. So, yeah, if you do have the extra time, and since everybody is going to be here. Are you guys good with that?

Just staying for a little bit.

I don't think we've gotten to that part of it.

I can't carry it anymore.

And on the way back two years ago. Yeah, that's been a two-year, or you should probably deal with that. The county might give us directions. Yeah, because that's a safety issue. It always goes back to the safety issue. Well, with the fire, remember, with the fire department. Right, right. That's what I mean. We talked about the basis to all that. Well, these things will . Yeah.

That might be a good place to start. We're going to dive into some policy adjustments and get more of you guys on looking at that. But for a policy objective, it needs to be the basis to change things and be sure it's .

And then there's also the mining thing, which I guess is one bounce back again because that's all part of this too, detecting the aquifer.

I think we were thinking in July. It might not come back to the actual forever hearing, you mean? I don't think we're going to be ready to bring it back for a hearing in July before the planning commission. We could bring something through.

A workshop?

Yeah, because I think that was what we were supposed to do, a workshop at the beginning.

So what's, I don't mean to be rude or anything, what's the holdup? Why the delay, why is it taking so long? It seems to be an important issue.

Yeah. We got sidetracked.

A couple other issues came up.

We got those out. I think this is the next thing on the priority list.

Like third one down or something.

No, it's rising to the top. Along with data centers. Data centers are rising to the top. Yes. So you saw the front page paper. So that's made company for them. Yeah. That's something we have to make very important.

Data center rolling is what we have.

There might be a question that's already won it. that was controversial i remember that oh yeah

I just have to share, on my drive up here, one of my jurisdictional clients in eastern Washington, asked about a moratorium on data centers, and he said, you know, do you need it on Wednesday? Oh, small town?

No, small city, north of Spokane. Yeah, there's constantly evolving technology involved with that.

And I seem to remember our assessment was that to totally deny them, not that that's the way to go, legal reasons, but to make it so restrictive that it'd be hard to do anyway.

Yeah, when people think about it, Vlad, one of our clients, I don't know if you guys know Vlad, brought up, he said, well, what's going to happen? Because they would. Yeah. That's something people don't think about. Maybe write something in your own journal. If something goes wrong, you've got to do everything. Violate the key connection.

Yep. Violate the door open when you start.

Mm-hmm. Wanting to ignore pickleball clues. We are looking at those two opportunities. Anything else for us? Not at this time. Okay.

So any announcements, or did you guys have a meeting on anything, or anything for us? We just talked about having workshops with the hearing models right there.

Do you want to talk about July 8th? No, let's go.

um okay so in july what are you guys going to do

I almost brought my wife over today and I had to walk all the way to Apple and back from Helper's Restaurant and then all the way back to here in an hour and a half, both trips. Just so she didn't have to sit through this. Yes, yes, yes, I'll let you know. I want to thank you. We have July 23rd and then I'll go back. Oh, it's July 23rd, but very good. I think it's the second week that I'll be gone. Okay, so we're looking at the 23rd. I'll put it out. If you guys could just all respond.

I'm sorry, I won't be here.

Yes.

Okay. And then a motion to adjourn. I move to adjourn, Senator. Who's that, Tim? Okay. I adjourn it. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye.

That was easy.