Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, cool. Okay, good afternoon everyone. Um, I am going to call to order the April 8th, 2025 planning commission meeting for the city of Oak Harbor. Um, in terms of our roll call, we have two members in person. Um, Commissioner Fry and Chair Inglebret. And then we have two members on online, Commissioner Wilson and Commissioner Bradley. And our ex official city council member Jim Wisner is absent. Um so moving on, we uh I will give you all a moment to look at the minutes for our March 11th, 2025 regular business meeting. Uh if there are any questions, let us know. Otherwise, u I'll give you a second to read those. Then when you're ready, I'll take a motion to approve or change or do whatever. I'll make a motion to accept the minutes as written. Okay, I have a motion. Do I have a second? I'll excuse me. I'll second it. All right. Motion by Fry, second by Bradley. All those in favor? I I motion passes unanimously. Okay, moving on to our public comment section. So this during this time um citizens may comment on subjects of interest uh that are not on the agenda or agenda items. To ensure comments are recorded properly, please state your name clearly and into a microphone. Individual comments will be limited to three minutes to ensure maximum participation during this 15minute allotted time frame. Folks may also submit comments online at www.ocarbor.gov/public comment at least 2 days in in advance of uh the advisory

board meeting. So, we've received two public comments that will be displayed online and then we'll move to folks in the room. Okay. So, uh, those were our two public comments and I'll open it up to anyone in the room or online. Um, we'll start with folks in the room. All right, seeing none, we'll start with anyone online who wants to make any public comments. All right, going once, going twice, three times. Thank you all for participating and being here. Okay. So, moving on to our next item, which is a public hearing on zoning code amendments to Okar Municipal Code sections 19 uh.08.120 and 199.08.676. um presented by our associate plann. Um making sure we have the right presentation here. Yeah. Yes. So, thank you commissioners. Um I'm filling in for Ray Lindenburg today. Uh the presentation I'm bringing you today is for amendments to uh chapter 1908 our definitions planning code. Um those definitions are building line definition which currently only allows for an architectural encroachment of eaves into the setback. Uh whereas it is typical

for the definition to allow encroachments of other architectural features as well. And so we've made amendments to the definition to include sills, fireplaces, cornises, and chimneys and flu uh as well as open beams and trelluses. And we've adjusted the degree to which they can encroach into that setback down from 3 ft to 2 feet. Um we this is uh these were reviewed against um Pure Cities codes and this is we find this typical and um a change that would be beneficial for many developers. The other definition I don't believe so I have to turn it on. There we go. The other definition is to our private nursery school child daycare center or kindergarten definition. Uh the city of Oak Harbor currently regulates the amount of um outdoor play area that a daycare is required to have and the state of Washington also regulates the amount of outdoor play area that a daycare is required to have. Um we were proposing to simply defer to the state of Washington's requirement um and amend our code to read as such. So daycarees do not have to comply with two separate requirements. We are recommending approval for both of these and our recommended action is on the screen. Any questions? I'll gladly field. Sounds good. Thank you. Um yeah. Are there any questions um from any of the commissioners? All right. Yeah. Go for it, Commissioner Fry. Uh, the only question I have is on the uh 1908 120 it says flu, chimneys, so on

so forth uh may extend to the line. Does that mean like the chimney can be on the property line? Is that what that means? No. So the building line is the uh the building envelope established when the setbacks are determined from the property line. So imagine that your side set back typically in most zones is 5 ft. So your property line, you'll have your property line and then you'll have a required setback from that property line which we'll say is 5T that 5T away from the property line is your building line. So when this says that you can have a setback encroachment of 2 feet, that means that if you have an architectural feature that can encroach 2 feet across the building line, it can be 3 ft away from the property line. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Very good. Um, anyone online have any questions? Have any thoughts? No. Uh, I have one real quick comment, not necessarily a question. I think anytime that we can if the state of Washington has some sort of regulation and we can defer to the state of Washington to eliminate the trying to comply with two different um regulations that just makes all the sense in the world. Thank you. Okay, so thank you Nolan. Um I will now open our public hearing component of this item uh for folks who are in the room or online to to make comments. Um and then afterward we'll close and have some commission or deliber del deliberation. So anyone in the room interested in making public comment on this specific item? Seeing none, I'll move to folks online. Is there anyone um on our online

portion of this uh meeting who would like to make comments on our our definitions and this public hearing? Okay. Not hearing anyone from the public. Um I will say going once, going twice, three times. Uh thank you very much. Okay. So, we will now close the public hearing portion of this item and move on to our um commissioner recommendations and motions. Do I have a motion to approve or to recommend? I make a motion to accept both as written. Yeah, let me correct that. Let me make a motion and move to recommend approval of amended amendments to chapter 19.08 of the Okar Municipal Code pertaining to the respective definitions of building line and private nursery school, child daycare center, or kindergarten. Very cool. Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second? I'll second. Motion by Fry, second by Bradley. Okay. So, anyone else have any further comments, discussion we want to make before a vote? Um, I agree with Commissioner Bradley, right? I think that when we can streamline and consolidate some stuff as it overlaps, I think that's a smart move and makes things a little bit simpler for folks. Anyone else? Any other thoughts? Okay. So, I will ask you all to vote. So, all those in favor of the recommended motion, please signify by saying I. I. I. I. Any

opposed? Okay, looks like the motion passes unanimously. Thank you all. Okay. So, moving on to our uh discussion presentation report items. We'll move to our 2025 major comprehensive plan um update presented by our principal principal planner Kamak. Go for it. Good evening Kak. Uh here to hopefully give a short presentation on uh the update to our comprehensive plan. What I'm going to do is basically repeat the presentation that I gave the city council at their workshop. We were hoping that that would be a joint meeting between the planning commission and city council. Since uh several members were unable to attend uh that meeting, I thought I'll provide that same information here. Um I think it's helpful uh to kind of understand some of the concepts that um we are um kind of dealing with uh with this uh uh UG and lands capacity analysis. So I'll go over some of that but I also want to say that since our discussion with the city council we they have given us input for update. We'll gather that information. and I'll provide that as we go along with the with the presentation and hopefully tonight I can get input from the planning commission as well and we're hoping to go to the city council workshop on the 22nd this month. So that's kind of the summary. So with that I'll jump into the presentation that I provided of uh the city council and um and then we can kind of discuss about uh topics as as we go or at the end. So

um what I'll cover in my discussion today is just briefly start with where we were at the workshop with the February city council workshop after the joint meeting with the city council with and the and island county and then I'll talk about how our initial lands capacity options memo came out. I'll kind of jump into that a little bit and then I'll compare it to the one that is provided in your packet with the recent changes and then we'll talk about capacity and targets and then we'll look at some of the land use changes that are already or where are all uh proposed in the original options memo. We'll talk about uh environmental impact statement. uh it's a possibility that we'll be going in that direction and then we'll kind of touch upon UJ expansions and look at a draft map that we shared with the city council and um and then talk about next steps. So uh I will try to cover that ground uh as fast as I can without trying to skip too many details. So, uh, before I jump in here, at the February February 22nd or 25th workshop, um, we, uh, discussed with the city council the legislative input we got from Island County and the city council on our lands capacity because our original lands capacity analysis showed that we had capacity for a certain distribution of the income ranges. When we shared that information with the county, the county um uh requested that we consider more a different distribution for the same allocation, different distribution which

accommodates more of the 0 to30 and 0 to 50 and 50 to 80 uh average median income in the city limits. And this was challenging because that income bracket is known to uh be accommodated in the higher density districts, the R3, the R4 or the mixeduse districts and that land is actually limited in Okabra. So it's uh really challenging when um we got that response. So that's why we had to work with the city council and then we had to work with our consultants to see can we can we adjust um our strategy to meet this new distribution. So I'll go over some of the options that we can consider uh in trying to meet this new um and revised uh distribution. So at the February meeting, the council was okay for the city to move ahead and and and explore options to try and work with this redistribution. We did some of that work and that's what we shared with them at the workshop and that's what we're sharing with you now. And before we officially kind of share it with the county, we have we're taking input and making adjustments. So what is the um difference between uh the land use options memo that was um provided to us uh early um I think in October or August I should say and the one that's most recently. So on the left side is the table that uh has the information uh which was in the original and then the one on the right is the table that's provided with the most recent copy that's in your packet. So I'm just going

to highlight a couple things that we had to look at in order to accommodate this redistribution. The density. So we already in the original option um were hoping to consider higher densities. So these are all options for the city to consider. This is not a guarantee that we're saying that we will get to these densities. We're saying these are the tools that we can use in our development regulation in order to meet the target uh and the revised distribution. We still have to go out for community input. We still have to do a lot more analysis to determine whether these will work out and eventually we will have to choose a bunch of tools that will work for us. So we have a lot more work but what is it that we're willing to consider? These are the things. So in the original options memo we wanted to have uh some density increases and you can see that in the new one we have substantially increased the densities from the previous um ranges. So these development regulations create opportunities now for um more units to occur within u a given area. So these are pushing um height limits and things like that which we'll get to and that's the next thing I want to point out is the height limits. So, in the original land use options memo, we the city uh was open to consider higher height regulations in some of the districts. Currently, they're capped at 35 for some of the lower density districts. Even our commercial districts are capped at 35. And then our CBD and R4, I think, have higher heights. But I think our highest district is in the CBD, which is

currently at 55. So, with the new um heights um and I think I'm talking about it in reverse when I'm because I can't see very well. The the top circles are the heights and the bottom ones are the densities. So, I'm my I just caught that myself. So, I'm just adjusting it. So, um we are going to heights up to 65 ft. willing to consider heights um and increasing that will increase the um uh possibility for going to five or six stories which can provide the density that we think can accommodate some of the 0 to 30 30 to 50 and 50 to 80 AMI. We also looked at inclusionary zoning. This was not included in the original option. This is to say if you want to uh build that higher heights and higher density then you must provide for affordable housing which again targets that 0 to 30 30 to 50 50 to 80. So these are all additional things that the city is currently saying that we will explore and consider in trying to meet this revised target. So when we uh say what is target uh how do we achieve it and what is capacity I want to go through a little graphic and I hope the people that are online can see it uh to try and differentiate what it means to have capacity and what it is what is the target within that capacity that we're trying to hit. So [Music] um so if you can imagine um a city any city let's take Oak Harbor and think about what is the total

capacity of the city and um this total capacity can change it is not fixed. So um for example let me give you an example. So, let's say um we have 6,000 lots in the city of Okar that's zoned single family and can have a single family residential unit on it. Now, the state has come and said you can already add an ADU or you can add two units to these lots. So, technically and mathematically, you can say 6,000 lots will have a capacity of 12,000 units. and double it, right? But even mathematically if you think even although mathematically it shows that we know in reality that that's not going to be the case. So that's why I say the total capacity will vary based on regulations and over time. So that is not something that we are calculating in our lands capacity analysis. That's not our task and that's not what we should do because it's always going to vary. The moment we change our development regulations, increase height, increase density, we've changed the capacity of our city. So the total capacity can go up or go down and it's based on changes with regulations and happens over time. So I gave you the example of the single family. So you can imagine for multif family there are variable factors and so for the total city the capacity uh varies. So what are we supposed to plan for? We're supposed to plan for the next 20 years. So if this total capacity that's potentially here in the city, what can we expect over the next 20 years? That's what we should plan

for. So how do we determine what that capacity is? That's what and and how do we determine what that capacity is? So we use our current regulations whatever our height is and whatever our density is and say if we don't do anything this is what we expect from our 20 years and we have to determine how we determine that by using market factors. So just like the single family example, mathematically there's 12,000 capacity, but what is the realistic thing we can get in 20 years? So we have to look at lot sizes, we have market factors, we have deductions, all kinds of things that we can use in order to determine what that 20-year capacity is. So that is kind of what our original option memo did is use the countywide planning policies and the established market factors to determine what that 20-year capacity is. And that 20-year capacity was shown that it can take the 5,533 units that the county has allocated to city of Oak Harbor and its UG. So what do we do? So that's where we have to find some extra capacity within that total capacity. We have to kind of change our regulations a little bit. Maybe do some reasonzoning to make some more capacity. And when we do that, when we change regulations, so let's say we go from 35 ft to 65 ft for R4 as an example across all of those zoning lots, we have increased the capacity. So again, does that mean we will get all of that in the 20 years?

Likely not. So there's a market factor there as well. So we have capacity. We do determine that using changing changes in development regulations. And so those two tables that I showed you is all of those options that we are considering in trying to to determine whether we can kind of increase the capacity for the city. And even within that, we have to determine what we can get in 20 years even with these changes. and we have to make sure that we can hit that target that the county has asked us to to hit and that's kind of what we're trying to do. So that is the target and that's our goal. So we may increase our capacity. We can go to 60ft tall buildings or 70 foot tall buildings but we still have to use a market factor to determine what is it that we'll realize in the next 20 years. What is it possible? And that takes some market factors and the state provides in its uh in all the methodologies that the city and use local market factors to determine that. So we would have to do all of this in order to determine among all the LCA options that I talked about heights densities what is it that best suits us and how is it that we can get to the targets. That's kind of what our rest of the comp plan process will try to address. So, um this is are the map from our existing lance capacity or lance options memo and these are the areas that were identified as areas where we could gain additional capacity. So, not only do we adjust development regulations, we look at land use changes. So these are the existing areas and I just brought this up to this will change significantly by the way with our

new new memo and new density all of this will change. So for example in the original memo this area is zone commercial and original memo did not consider height changes in the commercial district. So it considered height changes in the residential districts to gain capacity but there were no residential changes height changes in the commercial and therefore this this property was identified as a potential to increase the height so that you can get some residential capacity. So under the original options these were properties that were identified as potential for extra residential capacity. So in these areas um at least all of these residential areas would have to be upzoned in order to have some sort of residential capacity. So I want to point out that we are in the original member considered reszoning uh to provide for some additional units and in our revised options we'll probably explore widening this area as well. Now, if you remember in the joint meeting with the county, they wanted the city to consider reszoning in the central part of town, which I believe is in this kind of triangle area here. And um I wanted to give that graphic on capacity and target because reszoning such as this can provide capacity in the long run. However, will it be able to provide the units for the market? So, okay. So, there's a difference. So, if you reszone it, it automatically doesn't happen. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't reszone or you should, but we should be realistic in our expectations of what would happen even with these

changes. So, not that this is not something you don't want to consider, but if you do consider it, you want to have the realistic option of how and when it'll develop and whether it'll actually contribute towards that 20-year market. Now, nothing wrong in planning past the 20 years. I'm a long range planner. The state asks for the 20-year and so we meet the minimum requirements, but there's nothing wrong and doesn't stop a city from planning farther than the 20 years. So, you can think of all of these options as you go through the comp plan process. Now, this again, as I mentioned, it adds long-term capacity that's likely to contribute towards the target. But one thing it may do when you go to a higher reszoning. So if you go to an R4 zoning, let's say, it makes all the single family non-conforming. The idea of going to a higher reszoning is that you want to get higher development. So if you continue to allow the single family to add ADUs or add units, the middle housing, all of that will go away because your hope is that you're going to get R4. So what that will do when you do these large scale resonings is it'll put some of the existing properties in non-conforming status. So there are pros and cons to all of these, but it doesn't prevent the city from trying um or exploring these options if it so wishes because we had this discussion at the city council and we had council members that expressed interest in exploring like if we don't do it now when everybody kind of sees this area as a possibility. So when when do you start planning for it? So good questions and these are all things that we can

explore. But you may get to the end of the update and decide that this is not the best tool that we want to do it later or you may consider it down the road not at this time. So you have that choice but if you want to do it you can do that as well. So with all of these options, so if you think about this triangle and the I can go back a few slides to here. So all of these R2, R3, R4 and I point didn't want and I wanted to point out that there's some options that are being considered for mixed uses which includes commercial which means height increases as well there. So densities and heights for all of these districts. So if you look at apologize for this. So if you look at this map and you can see this triangle and the colors are slightly different than the rest. So all your low density residential and your low density residential and along the highway, midway and downtown are your different colors. Now all of those if you consider new development regulations and height the density of that corridor that triangle goes up. So you can imagine heights for there are going to go to 50 ft 60 ft. So redevelopment can happen in all of these areas at a pretty intense rate. So um if you want to look at what you want to do in that area, you can definitely explore resoning. So all of these changes are kind of uh pushing us towards considering an update to our environmental impact statement. So our existing EIS environmental impact

statement for our comprehensive plan was done in 1995. It had a 20-year outlook to 2013 and as you can see we have gone past that. However, they had plan for a population of 28,520 by 2013. We still haven't gotten there. We are at 24,000. So they uh plan for a lot more growth and I think that's what has actually sustained the city for the past two updates without any UG expansions. the big changes is the um the EIS's outlook for a larger population and therefore they planned for a lot more land and I think that's what has sustained Okar but we're kind of getting to the to the end of that supply which is why we are considering all the changes we are right now so because of our 20-year projection um our population will get go past at least our projections will go past to 28,000. And so that's a good reason to consider an update. And an EIS, one of the nice things about an EIS is it will provide it'll look at options. It'll say no action, then preferred action, and then there'll be a couple more options. Either you do more or you do less kind of thing. And that's kind of nice to vet all of these heights, reasonzoning, etc. So you do an analysis, they'll do a little more analysis to see what works and then the community will have a choice in saying okay we like heights here we like resoning here we like these concepts here let's choose these and you know community may come out and say we don't want to see tall buildings we don't want to see this type of growth here or you never know what we will hear

back we have to take all of those into account as before we make that decision and that is yet come and will come with the EIS process and likely the update on the comp plan. So that uh covers the inside the city limits and the development and all the changes that we can consider in our comp plan update. And now coming to the UG part of um the um allocation is there's still remaining units that need to be accounted for and we know from the county's lands capacity analysis we know the capacity that the existing UG can hold and we know that there's a deficit of about 1,333 units. So where are those units going to go? And so as a city we get a chance to have an input saying where's the preferred areas of expansion? Where can we serve properties with our utilities? So the county can then make the final they get the final decision because the UG is part of their comprehensive plan. They get to make the final decision on where that boundary is and we then have to adopt that for planning purposes. So in the UG again you know usually there's a limited amount of area and you try and determine what is that capacity in that how much can you get from that existing UG and you determine based on where the existing areas are and it also based on existing regulations and the market factors what will the market bear and that's what we um kind of got a letter from the county in terms of the density they think that

should be planned for in the UG and we know that the 20-year target is greater than the 20-year capacity, current capacity that they have in the UG. So, we have to find ways to get more capacity in the UG and you do that by expanding the UG. So that's kind of how we get capacity in the UG and you try to hit your target hopefully with annexations. So you want to see the development happen in the city. So you plan for a capacity 100,333 through annexations. Now we can't expect all of these properties to come in within the 20-year period. It doesn't happen. We've seen that in our UG current if any current pattern if current patterns show us like in 1995 they adopted a UG they thought in 20 years they'll grow into the full UG and here we are 20 years later still growing into it. So similarly we'll have an expansion area and capacity but we still have a target within that we'll probably hit in the 20 years through annexation is how we try and hit that target. So what are some of the UG metrics in terms of this expansion uh and trade? So uh we've identified about 32 acres of commercial land uh along the the Crescent Harbor road that um is in the high noise area and even though it's south of 16th Street, it's really close to the accident potential zone. So it's um developability is fairly low. So, we think that would be a good uh area that you can trade for other commercial lands in other areas where they're more developable. So, we've identified about 32 acres. And then based on um the

county letter, we determined they suggested a six unit per acre density for the UG. That's kind of what they used uh for calculating the capacity in the current UG. So we kind of extrapolated that density because there's no other way to really determine that and identify 222 acres residential acres and that combined with the 32 is for a total of 254 acres. Now, since this slide was prepared, I shared this with the city council and the city council and seeing and I'll show you the map that I shared with city council have already recommended an additional 150 acres be added to this number to the 254. So, we are already working on adding that and so the map will be different from what I'm showing you right now. But that's the input that we got from from city council. So this is the map we shared with the city council and it identifies basically now this is the this is the area that is identified for trade uh along Crescent Harbor and Rugata 32 acres and we think that 32 acres can be transferred to properties along the highway here some acreage along Fort Nent and Boone Road and also to the intersection of Crossby and Heler. So those are places receiving areas likely for some of the commercial trade. And then the orange or yellow boxes kind of indicate the overall expansion area and most of those will be all residential designated for low density um in the city's comprehensive plan. And

then when they annex into the city, they'll come in at whatever zoning that the developer wants to develop their property as. Um so with this with the city council input now I mentioned that one of the reasons we selected these areas uh is number one they kind of match the stats of the 254 we get to 256 or something like that with this acreage but they're also serviceable. So um developer extended sewer water. Um here the land is sloping away a little bit but you can actually um make it happen. And here again you got sewer along Heler and you got a lift station at the end there. So and they're contiguous to the city. The main thing is they're contiguous to the city. So um properties can annex into the city and develop in the city. There's multiple ways they can do that and that's what's important because then that again it creates capacity but how do you hit that target? You want to provide as many opportunities for annexation. So the more they come into the city the more um uh the likelihood of meeting that target. Now this area there's um is not contiguous to the city. So you can see the city limits but there's the dotted line. So that dottle line is the existing UG. So if you add land here, they'll be contiguous to the UG, but they're not contiguous to the city limits. So in order for development to happen at urban densities, they got to be in the city. They got to be touching the city limit, not just the UG, but the city limit in order to come into the city and get city services. So, we intentionally left that area out, but we asked the city council what do they think, and they said, "Well, we'd like to see area added in there that

kind of connects all the way here." Now, this area is designated as LRS, lands of rural significance, which is one of the areas that the county um it's not the highest priority for them to be in the city because those lands do have some agricultural value. And so you don't want to see them converted into development if they have potential. And so for that reason, we left it out. But the council wanted to add that in to see if how the island county would respond, whether they have changed the designation, whether they see interest because it's a very strategic location because if you have areas here in the UG and if there is a demand for services to be extended here, that service will go past this area and therefore provide an opportunity for these properties to eventually get into city services and annex into the city. So, it's a long-term play and to try and get all of these properties, you know, eventually you want to get all of these islands into the city, right? So, um how do you do that? And so, that was the suggestion I think by from city council member Weezner for us to consider adding. So if you add some land there and consider some commercial there, you'll add another 150 acres. So you know going back to my previous slide, I think we add 150 acres to get to close to about 390 some acres of expansion area that we will probably bring forth to the U April 22nd workshop u to consider uh sending to the county. So, um, what are the next steps? Um, we'll prepare revisions to the to

the memo. We'll draft a letter and and I should have changed the slide, but we're going to go to the April 22nd city council workshop. Now, the mediation for April 10th has been postponed uh because I think we are uh finding ways to be cooperative and and consider this redistribution um that the island county has suggested. So, I think uh we can move past at least that point, but we're still keeping our options open if we do need to discuss with them uh steps further down. Uh we want to advance the EIS process. We need to talk to city council. We need to find out u um scoping for it. We need to find the budget for it. U that's a significant cost that's added to the comp plan process and EIS is not uh not cheap. Uh they come with a price, but they it's best done to protect the plan uh from um um from making sure that you're assessing all the impacts that you should and we're hoping to move the comprehensive plan forward with these targets. Once we have these targets and we at least have a general understanding of the expansion areas, we can start planning for them. We'll start having our OPAC meeting depending on the city council agreeing on the EIS. That will be a process we'll have to start scoping for that. That'll also have community input. So, I can foresee the spring and summer of this year being uh engaged in community input and considering all these options. So, we'll have another survey likely to go out to the community and these surveys will likely test some of these options uh with the community. And so hopefully that will all play into

uh what we eventually want to um set up for cover. So that is what I have for today and with that I will stop and turn it back to the commission for questions and comments. Okay. Thank you very much. Anyone want to start off with questions? Anyone online want to start off? Anyone have any thoughts, questions? Or we can start with us in the room. If you are still gathering your thoughts. All right. Do you have any questions? Go for it. Thanks, K. I appreciate it. I I did listen into the uh uh meeting that you you presented the city council with uh and that was uh I feel for you but I couple of questions. I appreciate everything that you're doing, but uh for the land use analysis that we did and I understand, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the county didn't really accept that because they wanted more even though the use analysis came out with what they thought our capacities should be. So, with that being said, once we do the environmental impact study, if it come out and pretty much well says the same thing as the land use analysis did, will the county accept that for our expansion into the UG at that point? Because it sounds to me like the county understands that we may need some of the UG. They understand that. And I see where they're coming from as well as where we're coming from. The problem is is it seemed to me like and I I like to win. I don't like to lose, but it seemed to me like they were forcing more trying to put more

emphasis on us changing our tool bag to prevent them from having to accept some of it. Maybe I'm wrong. I I'm not bad mouthing anybody. It's just the way I perceived it. Um, so the question that it boils down to is if the EIS and the land use analysis both concur pretty much well the same, why wouldn't the county then accept that for the use of the UG? And uh, and to I'll let you answer that first. Okay. Okay. So, I'm I'm going to clarify something here. I I am not entirely sure we know for sure what the county is thinking about in terms of UG expansion. We haven't gotten there yet, right? I mean, so right now we're preparing the map. So the map goes out and so then we'll get the first response on the UG. So I'm not assuming that they have in their meetings, legislative meetings and so on have shown their interest in seeing expansion areas knowing fully well that there's lack of capacity. So I think we just don't know where the areas of interest are for expansion. But I think we both as jurisdictions know that some expansion is necessary with this update. So that I want to clarify that first. So coming back to the EIS. So the the EIS will assess what the impacts will be if and when we change our

regulations. It's not going to test our regulations and say this won't work or that won't work. says, "Okay, if you increase your height, you're going to have these impacts that you have to deal with, whether it's storm water impacts or transportation impacts, and and you can do some solutions to deal with those impacts, but it's ultimately the community that chooses what they want to see in terms of their vision for their corridors and for their density that will actually determine what you choose to go forward with in terms of tools. So the EIS will do an analysis for you know if you didn't do anything. So they'll have one option for saying no action. If you didn't do any action, how far back are you going to fall with your housing or how far back or what you want to be able to accommodate? And then they'll have a preferred option that will have some heights that you vetted with the community, some reasonzonings that you already vetted with the community and so on. And then you'll have some other options that we'll consider let's say incentives for even going higher. Let's say 10-story buildings and 15story buildings if you had affordable housing or if you were in a particular area. So looking at even higher densities than 60 ft what is the impact of that on transportation corridors or in other so it will assess those impacts and give feedback on what we have to prepare for. So if we choose to go with let's say heights of 100 ft for someone then we have to bear the consequences of those impacts and find ways to mitigate them. You know it's our choice. You can choose the highest you want. All all we're saying is okay if we choose the highest category we have to assess the impacts. The impacts mean that we will have larger infrastructure

needs which means we need to find ways to finance them. So the impact fees for all of these are going to be higher because now we've done an analysis knowing what the impacts will be. So we pick and choose with this EIS on how much impacts we want to deal with and how we're going to deal with them. Does that make sense? So it's not going to come and tell us or qualify for us whether we're doing the right thing. and you should go back or there's no uh perfect uh formula against which you can assess whether you're going to do something right or wrong. Well, thanks for answering that and clarifying that because I was misunderstood on what the EIS was for. So, thank you for that. Uh with that being said, I don't have any more questions. Thanks, Skype. Okay. Anyone online at this point? Okay, a couple thoughts that I wanted to clarify. So, do we have a good sense of what the So, the housing targets that we're trying to meet, what does that difference between the EIS population and our 2045 target population, how is that? Do we have a good sense of what that sort of looks like? Not yet. We know that our 2045 population will cross the existing EIS threshold. Our EIS analysis can calculate for more or less population density. So if we choose higher development regulations or higher height, we could shoot for a higher population. We don't know that yet. So that choice can be made after the EIS. Okay. And so in terms of urban growth area and then I guess the intersection of county regulations and city

regulations, six units per acre in the urban growth area seems low compared to city densities that we typically allow, right? I guess. So is our sort of assumption that we are saying, you know, we need we need 250 acres because we're assuming that it's all at that sort of six dwellings per acre county standard. And then as folks show interest, we give them the opportunity to annex in reszone to something that is more greater than six dwelling units per acre. And then at that point there you know our capacity that we have created in the UG goes unrealized. Is that am I understanding that correctly? There will there will be yes there will be. So I think the six units per acre is the lowest density of our residential district. So we can potentially have every applicant come in and say I just want to build at that density which we don't think will happen because we have to accommodate more AMI distribution in there. However, we don't have a good methodology of determining exactly how much area we need at city densities because we really can't assign the zoning to land in the county. And we don't know what their choice is. We want to have some choice for the applicant as well in developable or in terms of how they want to realize developability of their land. And so um

the six acres is just a is sort of an agreed measure just like how you would have in the countywide planning policies on an agreed way to do certain things. It's just an agreed measure to determine the area. I mean that's uh what will happen when they come into the city is hard to predict and determine uh at this time. So that's why this methodology and approach. So in terms of the commercial areas that we are wanting to facilitate by the UG land swaps and sort of that component of this. Do you have any further thoughts or any other ideas? And I guess this is also me saying maybe we should think about this as like those areas at the edge of town that we're thinking might be appropriate for commercial. Is it worthwhile also thinking that as we sort of create these centers, these nodes that are outside of our downtown core and off the highway and and sort of outside of those areas, is it worth thinking about either looking at I guess I have a map in front of me and so like looking at like Avenue or Swantown out as like potential areas to move and See, you know, beyond 20 years, but into that like sort of future future future planning of like these corridors could become less single family residential and more higher density or commercial mix type things. Or is it worth thinking about at the edge of town where we have these commercial centers if there is opportunity for that sort of shift from having all of our services and and businesses and those types of things

sort of centered in the triangle? Is it can you do you have any more thoughts about that? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um so one of the things that we learned from our first survey when we went to the community is that there's a great interest in neighborhood commercial. So one of the reasons for coming with these neighborhood ne commercial commercial nodes in these expansion areas is to kind of follow that uh kind of concept of trying to provide for these options. I mean they serve many planning purposes. They can be convenience for people so that they don't have to make a trip. It helps transportation. There are many benefits. It serves the county larger county area depending on what type of commercial you have there. So um but the concept of neighborhood commercial uh in these UG expansions is a small slice of what we can consider for inside the city. Um, and so when we come forward with our comp plan proposals for the county, we will have some maps to indicate areas within the city that could be likely candidates for neighborhood commercial as well. Um, so we are working on that and that's part of the concept and not only is that a growing concept in the community and it's great to hear that the community wants it, but I think at the state level there's also some discussion on actually requiring or at least allowing cities to not be too much of a barrier in uh seeing these neighborhood commercial um kind of uses uh be incorporated into cities. Uh traditionally under the old zoning and some of the um court cases some isolated uh commercial zoning and residential districts were considered

like spot zoning and there were some impacts related to that that cities generally were trying to avoid. But we've seen over time that some of these areas are actually conveniences for the neighborhood and some of them are actually amenities. And so now they're becoming more of a desirable uh kind of a land use. And so the city is looking forward to trying to accommodate that. Um these areas and the expansion um areas are are easy targets I think because they're just um with new development. there's a lot more potential but I think the city is working on trying to identify land even inside the city uh to provide for some commercial nodes and it could be at existing intersections would be in Heler or um you know 6th Avenue uh 6th and you know uh right by broad view there's some areas that could use it you know so there are there are potential pockets within the city where you can accommodate these and if if you provide as a city opportunities for them then and then allow them to organically develop based on uh demand or interest I think um you you leave your options open for the future. Thank you. Uh I guess another question about the intersection of like annexation and urban growth areas. So like right clearly there are areas that are not I guess okay just take a step back when I think of Oak Harbor right there isn't like the boundary line of Oak Harbor does not really designate the place right like urban growth area places that are developed as single family neighborhoods still feel like Oak

Harbor to me right like the delineation between there are areas that are sort of islands of Island County that are unincorporated ated, but they're still neighborhoods. That all still feels like Oak Harbor to me, right? And so I think like in those cases, in those spots where they still are in Island County, what role do we have as the city of Oak Harbor to like bring them into the city, right? like what I guess what is our responsibility for those sort of already developed places and I guess more more so than anything I'm curious on like why are they not in the city already? I think it's primarily infrastructure and choice. Okay. So choice is maybe before infrastructure. The choice is um I think these island um islands of unincorporated uh county within in the city is actually a sweet spot because you're in the county and you are not paying the city utilities. You're not, you know, doing the city taxes. You're on the island county tax. So, it's a choice that you're really close to all these facilities, very accessible, schools, commercial districts, and so on. but you still have lower property taxes or lower requirements in terms of what it is that you you need permits for or whatever it is. So that's the choice of and and then and that comes along with reluctance to actually wanting to be in the city because as long as you can

enjoy the benefits, you're going to do that. So that's that's one thing that doesn't motivate these areas to come into the city and it makes it difficult for the city to annex them because when when you encounter friction there's a lot more time resources etc that you're spending and so what becomes an annexation what you think is logical becomes a challenge. So that is the reason why most of these areas are still outside of the city. And then there are some annexation laws that are in place I think that um the city has not used uh because there's there's tools to undo them. So there are state laws that say if there are certain area less than certain acreage, the city and if the city is fully surrounding it that the city can annex them in. But that same law also allows for the people within that annexed area to petition themselves out. So you can make all the efforts to try and get them in, but there's no guarantee that they'll stay in because there's an ability for them to choose to vote themselves out, I think. So there's that process as well. So you have to wait for a sweet spot or a time a point in time when they need city utilities. And the timing of how that happens differs from property to property. And that is the second challenge in trying to provide infrastructure. If all of their utilities were to fail at one time,

you'd have the ability for them to get together, make common decisions, get into agreements. Um whether it's LI some way infrastructure needs to be funded. Um and all the infrastructure that currently is in the ground is paid for by somebody by the developer by the property owner who built a house. So in similar fashion it is the responsibility of that property owner to pay for that infrastructure to come to their house. And so that will all have to be done. And those are all very challenging things to accomplish unless the point in time comes where they need the service and the city has the resources to bring all of that together. So that's the challenge and why some of these areas are so difficult and why we don't want to create more of these areas because it's always going to be challenging to do that. Okay. Thank you very much. Um, I don't think that I have any other questions. Was I guess I'll open it up back for the folks online if you have any comments, but KC, is there anything specific that you want us to give you feedback on that you didn't hear or is this sounding good? Sounds good. If if the commissioners have um any uh particular areas of UG expansion um that you want to talk about uh this would be the time to do it. You know, we I can tell you we did consider a lot of areas um that are not shown on the map of course because they are either designated as um you know LRS or they have significant wetlands

uh or you know there's some sort of a barrier that didn't make sense. And so we like I said part of my goal uh in looking at all of this was not only to see where capacity is but can we actually get that target you know that's the that's key I think uh to focus on and so trying to make annexations much easier is the best way I think to approach that I guess one one thought in response to that are there can you talk a little bit about any thoughts that you've uh had or looked into about like UG expansion north of Crescent Harbor, right? Like on sort of like I know that that long chunk is is Navy land, but like north of that is that out of like the noise zones and the accident potential zones. Are there thoughts about that specific area or are we does it primarily make sense to look I guess West west and south. Yeah. Um the accident potential zone I think crosses all the way if I remember right comes up to Crescent Harbor Road I think. And so you'd have to kind of um skip that or get past it's it's almost like a barrier. It's like a highway. It's an imaginary barrier. So, contiguity um north of Crescent Harbor is a little more challenging for infrastructure extensions and so on. So, we didn't look very deeply into that area. It didn't seem like that uh area was would have any efficient extension of infrastructure.

But good question. Yeah, absolutely. Makes sense. Okay, last call for folks online. Going once, going twice. All right, thank you very much, K. Thank you. All right, our next item is a discussion on our clearing and grading code amendments u presented by our senior planner, Dennis Lef Fever. All right, go for it. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um good evening, planning commissioners. I'll guarantee you two things. Um, one, this presentation will be far less complicated as C's uh compl issues that he's dealing with and it's going to be shorter as well. Uh, this is your second touch on this item and I thought I'd take the opportunity tonight and just kind of show you what kind of progress we've been making on this um, code amendment. I will attempt to share my screen. So Tim be at the ready in case I'm not able to do this on teams.

Okay. Can you see that? We can see a couple of them. Um, it's okay. I'm not sure how to make them bigger, but Okay, we can see it. Perfect. You can see it. Okay. It's a short presentation anyway. So, what I'll just do is um go with it. Anyways, what I um did mention at your January meeting was uh the reason for this code amendment is to basically combine the land clearing and the grading permit process uh that we uh implement on some development proposals. And the reason for that is um the land clearing review and permitting which is in title 19 chapter 47 uh is under the jurisdiction of development services while the grading regulations are under public works the engineering division. So there was always some type of um additional coordination needed. Sometimes there was some confusion between regulating both the clearing and grading of a certain project. So, what we're looking at doing is combining those two in one chapter of the municipal code. Uh, where would be the best place to put it? Well, I did some research on other communities and for the majority of other communities clearing and grading codes, uh, they place them in their environmental title. So that's why we are looking at moving them out of title 19 into title 20. And the other reasons our clearing and grading have intrinsic linkages to other environmental aspects just as um specifically the geologically hazardous areas, flood damage prevention,

vegetation preservation, storm water, water quality. So there's natural linkages that would allow it to be a better fit in title 20. Plus with forest practices act and the shoreline management act which are all couched in um title 20 that's also very consistent. The other thing that we're doing, and I think I mentioned this at the last meeting too, is making the city engineer or his or her designate as the authority over clearing and grading. Much of that work presently is done through the grading efforts of the engineering staff. So, it's a natural fit to slide over the the clearing aspect as well, the processing for a clearing permit as well as a grading permit. Uh as you can tell in the attachment one which was the rough draft of the TW u the new chapter 2015 um much of the grading regulations and forest practices are couched within the storm water management manual uh for western Washington which I think the most recent manual is the 2019. So all of this clearing and grading will be basically under one roof and should provide some permit efficiency and consistency as we move through this process. Uh my very short presentation ends with this slide which says basically tonight we're going to give you an opportunity to take a look at the draft chapter that we're preparing. We're still having discussions with engineering staff to uh work out some of the details on on this effort. City Council will have a take uh an opportunity to take a look at this draft April workshop. We've got a couple of

things minor housekeeping issues to do with code amendments and we hope to bring it back to you at your May meeting for a public hearing and by that time uh it should be in ordinance format and ready to be approved. Um and then subsequently we'll take your recommendation to the city council at their public hearing in in June. So with that the very brief presentation but an update um I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have. Okay. Thank you very much. Do we have any questions from people in the room? Okay. I'll have a couple but I'll open it. Any questions? Any comments from our commissioners on line? No, sir. No, I'm good at this time. All right. Thank you both very much. Um, I guess the only question or clarification I have, right? So, in looking through the draft, it's on page 19 of 21 in the packet um and page 10 of the code. There's there's a section about tree retention and how that specifically calls back to chapter 1946. So I guess my question is does that when we're talking about tree retention and the requirements of tree retention and and that component of development that is still a development services responsibility and that's not necessarily getting shifted into like the rules for how folks go about clearing and grading. So, there's still a little bit of that overlap and coordination.

I will have to look at chapter 1946 and make sure that that's an accurate statement. Um, I think that's a good question and I'm glad you brought that up because that's what this draft is for. So, I will look at that, have discussions with um other members of development services and engineering and see where that would best be referenced. Um that's a good question. Thank you for bringing that up. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think just to to further that point along, I think it's just as we're working through coordinating and consolidating this with engineering, I think it would be useful to make sure that they at least know and understand what the long-term goals surrounding tree retention and tree planting and all of those are. So as they are looking at these plans, you know, they're not putting themselves in a situation where a developer is asking to clear all the trees on a part parcel and that's not something that is in line with what we're wanting to see happen and and all that. So but great. Um that's all that I wanted to clarify. So I'll say any last comments, any last opportunities on clearing and grading? Thank you for your presentation. Going once, going twice. Okay, thank you again and we'll look forward to it in a couple months. Okay, so that is um the last of our discussion items. I'll move on to member comments. Does anyone online have any specific comments that they want to bring up at this point or are you all good? I'm good. Okay, going once. Going twice. Sounds

good. Any comments for from folks in the room? Okay, hearing none. The only comments that I have is I went to the the workshop with town council um a couple weeks ago and nope, city council, sorry. um uh and I heard sort of CAC's presentation there as well and so that was very interesting and very informative and um I'm looking forward to supporting them and giving some good input on on the comprehensive plan as we move forward. Um that's all I have and with that I'll let everyone know that our next scheduled meeting is May 13, 2025. So hope to see you all there. And with that, I will take a motion to adjurnn. I'll make a motion that we adjourn from the uh April 8th uh planning commission meeting. I'll second. Motion by Wilson, second by Fry. All those in favor? I I I motion is adjourned. All right. Our meeting is adjourned. Thank you all very much.