Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Right. Good evening everyone. I would like to call to order the Tuesday, October 14th, 2025 Oak Harbor Planning Commission meeting. It is 6:00 and we'll dive right into it. So, first our call to order. We are all present and I would like to welcome our newest planning commission member, Jeffrey Ward. Thank you for being here. Thank you for volunteering your time. Looking forward to working with you. And that's all you get. Moving right along. Um, we have our approval of the minutes for September 9th last last meeting. So, I'll take a moment for you all to look over that and then when you're ready, take a motion to approve those. Okay. Okay. I make a motion to approve last month's meeting minutes as written.

A second. All right. Moved by Bradley, second by Fry. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. I was told since I wasn't a commissioner at the last one that it's uh appropriate for me to abstain approving the minutes.

Perfect. So motion passes with one abstension. All right. And so at this point, we'll move along to our public comment period. Um we have one public comment that will be displayed um when we get there. But at this time um folks are um welcome to comment on things of interest on the agenda or not on the agenda. Um to ensure your comments are recorded correctly, please uh state your name into the microphones and uh if you have any written comments, you can submit those 20 or yeah what? 2 days in advance. Two days in advance um and they'll be displayed on our um presentation. So we'll start with the written comments that we received. We received one and it is on screen now. Give you all a moment to read. It's more than 750. Just a small.

Okay. Very good. So, if you want to submit comments like that, you can submit them two business days in advance uh to www.ocarbor.gov/public comment. And if there's anyone in the room that would like to make a public comment, now would be your time. All right.

Going once, going twice. Okay. And for anyone online, if you want to make a public comment, now would be your time. All right. Going once, going twice, three times. Thank you for your public comments. and we'll move right along to our discussion for tonight. So, this is our uh 2025 major comprehensive plan update presented by our principal planner, Cat Kamak. So, whenever you're ready, take it away.

Good evening. Thank you. Uh welcome to our new commissioners and uh good to see everybody here. Um I will make my uh remarks uh brief and uh leave the floor open for discussions and comments related to the policies. Um I'll go just go through an overview for folks that are watching at home or may watch later. Um uh we are currently just taking a first look at all the existing policies in our comprehensive plan. We're going element by element. In the LA at the last planning commission meeting, uh we looked at a few um elements. We looked at urban design, transportation, utilities, environment, capital facilities, and um today I'm hoping that uh we can have a discussion on parks and recreation, economic development, um government services, and climate resiliency. And those are the four. So, I'm going to grab my pointer here. All right, I have a just a few uh slides. And oh, by the way, we also have uh our consultant that's online. Uh Aaron Kelly from Kimley Horn is here. They are helping us with our comp plan update. They have been involved in uh come in uh helping with these draft policies, reviewing it uh against all the state bills. So some of the uh policy suggestions uh some of the new policies uh that are recommended in in here uh come from uh house bills that they are incorporating for us in some fashion or the other. Um so uh if we have any questions uh u that Aaron can

answer uh she's here to uh share information with us as well just FYI. So, with that, I'm going to quickly go through a few slides and then turn it back over to the commission for comments and and questions and discussion. So, again, um just to go over, we're doing the the plan policy review. Again, this is the first uh kind of cut at it. We're looking at the existing policies right now. Uh we'll have a chance to look at uh take all the comments from the board's commissions. We're also reviewing most of these policies internally with staff and with our department so we have their comments. We'll take all the input and uh generate a draft document which will again come back to the planning commission and the public uh for review. So we'll have a couple more chances to look at it. So um if uh items don't get addressed tonight uh or if you bring things up and it's continuing to be discussed uh it could be addressed at a later draft as well. Um so uh as I mentioned the comments will help shape the draft plan. So this is the first take at it. Um and um as mentioned we're looking uh today at parks, recreation, economic development, government services and climate resiliency. So we'll look at all of these policies and as you're aware we are also looking at doing an environmental impact statement for our comprehensive plan. I mentioned this to the planning commission in the past. Uh an environmental impact statement uh is an alternate to doing a sepha. Uh normally we would do comp plan amendments. We would do a uh environmental analysis uh a sepha process uh and we usually identify some mitigation measures if there are impacts and we adopt a plan. Uh this time um our comp plan is being planned for population that exceeds the original

EIS. We're also considering a large um flux in u development potential and so I think uh going the EIS route is just a better way to analyze all the impacts of what we're looking at and try to start mitigating for them as we as we go through the planning process. So um we are hoping that this EIS will start at the end of this year or beginning of next year and when they're doing the EIS um uh we probably will be moving very few u kind of remote elements in the comprehensive plan because the EIS is going to help us with the draft plan at the very end. We don't want to discuss too many things before the EIS is done. Uh so we'll go through the EIS process. uh most of uh next year early and then we'll probably come back to the draft policies mid next year. So this is going to just help us go into that EIS process. It sets up a foundation. Um this is not the final policies. We'll probably have more changes that will come uh and we'll continue to discuss them. This is just a way to just have continuous public input throughout the entire process. Um the other thing um on um before I jump into the draft policies and just kind of go over what we briefly did to address them uh without going into any detail, I'll also let the planning commission know that uh we are still working with Island County on the countywide planning policies and the growth related uh discussions on housing allocations in the UG. We have a a a tenative joint meeting scheduled uh at the end of this month, October 28th, between the city council and island

county commissioners. And they're going to take a look um at uh whether uh approaching this UG um uh as a study area jointly is beneficial and whether we should enter into a local agreement uh to move that idea forward. So, uh I think uh the idea is to just look at the UG as a joint study area, not as a separate entity. Uh the UG is mostly um under the county's authority because they have the permit authority. It's not in the city, but we have planning authority. We have to plan for it with our infrastructure. So, we need to find a way to uh work with each other. And I think doing a joint study uh with both our resources will be helpful. And I think that's what the commissioners and the city council are looking to consider at a joint meeting this month. So that's a separate update uh on the side going on related to growth. Um so um jump into the into the elements real quick. Um just to give you an idea of the format um of the policies that are presented in the packet for everybody at home. Um the uh planning commission packets are available online under the planning commission um website uh under the CFO cover website and uh most of the attachments that we're discussing today is part of that uh the attachments uh for the report. So the policies have been laid in a in a spreadsheet u about with four columns. Um the first column has the name of the element and the page from which the it is in the current um uh current plan. They've also designated just uh an sort of a theme or subheading to it in order to determine what kind of a policy

it is just for tracking purposes. I think initially when we were talking with Kimley Horn and we still may go in that direction is whether we wanted to readjust all these policies whether we wanted to regroup them differently but I think mostly we're sticking with the same kind of elements that we are right now but anyway they've categorized them as sub themes just so that we can categorize them differently if we needed um and then we have a column for the existing policy uh proposed revisions and some notes on maybe why the revisions um were contemplated. So that's how the format is. Uh again for the parks, recreation and open space element, we engaged the parks department in this review. They did a a nice job of reviewing all the elements. In fact, they looked at the entire comprehensive plan and are also suggesting language in other parts of the plan where they think uh parks is influenced by it. um parks department since the last update has grown uh now it has the marina, it has the the center um which was known as the senior center before uh and it has the parks division. So now that is more of an umbrella department. So they took a look at it from that angle. Um and they um you know we uh changed some of the language to a maintenance type language. If you notice some of the uh language change where the original policy was to go explore or adopt a code of some sorts, some of that work has already been done. We've already adopted a code or a guideline, but we don't want to take it out because we did the action. We still want to support that existing uh guideline that we adopted by including some maintenance language. So we've changed where actions have been done uh just to give it more still give it importance in the comprehensive plan. We've uh we've changed it to a more

maintenance type language. So you'll see some of the changes in there. Do that. Um there are a lot of plans that are referenced in our comp plan. Some of them have been amended, updated, uh changed. So some of the changes are to reflect some of those changes and not make references to outdated plans. Um and and then also if the policy was not very clear, we attempted to clarify as best as we can in terms of the intent of why that policy is in there. Um again, the economic development um policy this uh we had our um finance department um and uh our uh um uh city manager's office take a look at uh this set of policies. Uh there are some new policies added in here uh just to keep it in uh consistent with the state requirements. The uh state requires some sort of language in there to make sure that economic development is compatible with land uses. Uh so we'll see some policy uh added to to make that connection. Uh some of these are obvious connections in our minds in terms of how we do it. It's just that uh the state sometimes requires us to have policies in place uh to indicate that intent. Again, I think there have been some policies added to uh kind of track economic changing economic conditions or track employment capacity or do a periodic review of these to kind of try and keep on top of that. Uh again, policies have been uh just adjusted to try and reduce barriers and take away those development regulation barriers that are uh hindering some um redevelopment potential. Uh again uh investing in the marina. Uh I think there was a lot of reference to the waterfront

uh branding plan that was done years ago that has been updated since then and has become the windagma improvement plan. So the plan has been amended and updated. So we took the references out to those and um um so those are some of the changes that were done in the economic development section. Uh government services, we had our police and fire department take a look at these policies and suggest changes. So if you see in the document, there are very some very specific things that the fire chief and the police chief wanted to include in there to reflect what current practices and uh in the um in the police and the fire world uh follow in terms of uh metrics. And so we wanted to make sure that they have a chance to uh include that changes and again some clarity of some markers and thresholds uh within those. And then we have a new element um the climate resiliency element. I don't know what the final name of the element is going to be but for right now I'm just calling it the climate resiliency element. It's been labeled very differently in different memos, but eventually I think we'll get to one title. Um anyway, it's a new element that uh we're adding to the comprehensive plan. Uh this is again a requirement from the state. We have got some grant money to look at this new element. So there's a subconsultant that uh is working with Kimley Horn uh that is specifically working on the climate element uh for us uh and they are reviewing our existing policies. And so there's a memo that's included in your packet that kind of outlines the process and the requirements of the house bills. Uh you know uh uh 1181 uh there was an evaluation done. There's

a tool that the state provides in order to determine what hazards impact your particular region and uh it was determined that sea level rise extreme precipitation are the hazards that are most applicable to Oak Harbor as a region and that was just what the tool said and then the process requires you to go take some community input to determine if there are more hazards at the kind of ground level that wasn't captured by the tool that is being used at the statewide. And this is one of the questions that we had in the first complant survey that went out related to climate. And we got some responses on the wildfire and smoke related uh comments that now western Washington is being experiencing. And so we added that as a as a hazard that we should think about while we plan for our future. And then we also had uh the second Oakpack meeting last month and climate resiliency was a topic there. There was good attendance and we got some really good comments. The summary of those comments and meeting notes are in your packet. Uh you can read through them. They gave us some really good input. Um and so extreme heat and drought related to transportation was one of the comments that came out of that uh in order for us to consider for uh for our area. So these are the some of the hazards that our um element is identifying just to kind of start the conversation. Now um this element is not um intended to u uh start mitigating immediately. It's just opening up an element, starting to set some policy. In fact, if you look at the House bill, I think there's language saying you should have at least one goal or one policy. And we're having we have four goals and we have several policies. So, it's just the

intent I think from the state is to start the conversation at the community level and let the community through its planning efforts and we'll go through this over the years and update this element. Um because once we have this element in our comp plan and once every community has an element like this in their comp plan then the state can start to say let's see if we can bring some consistency what can we do you know by addressing it in all these jurisdictions. So this is just the first uh step in trying to address it. Um so you know in the packet we've uh put in the tools that were used to do the vulnerable vulnerability study and the gap policies and so on. These uh our consultants looked at the existing policies to see how climate change can be integrated into the existing policies. We also have some new policies that have uh that are being recommended um in other elements and also new policies that are uh being considered for the new element. And all of this information is in your packet. I'm not going to go over all the new goals. I have one more slide if this thing switches, but then Oh, there you go. Thank you. Uh so the new policies I think we have six new policies that are being proposed at this point based on the comments that were received by Oakpac based on some internal conversations with staff. uh they address overall resiliency, equity, sea level rise, uh extreme precipitation, water resources was something again that was identified through local conversation because we get our water from Anacortis and that pipe is the lifeline for Oak Harbor and all. And so that was identified as a very critical asset and that we should find a way to make sure that we think about it and find ways to invest in it and protect

that. So uh policy came out of that discussion and of course the wildfire and smoke is definitely in everybody's mind. We went through a summer uh that uh we've been impacted by uh by wildfire and smoke. So it's becoming more of a common thing. What do we do and how do we uh what can we do to uh to address those? So these are some of the policies that have been recommended. it's in your in your packet. And um um the Oakpack discussion was very good because um I'll just highlight one of the comments that kind of stood out for me uh in in terms of why we have all of these discussions and um uh why it's important to take input. You know, we were at the Oakpack meeting and we're talking about all the sea level rise and the impacts to the shoreline and what should we do with the uses and the land uses and the structures and the utilities etc. And there were representatives from the the tribes at the meeting which is great. We have them in our Oakac uh meeting uh giving input to our comp plan and they approached it from a very different angle and they said well how do we protect the water you know from all these land uses and it's a different perspective and it's great to hear those kind of comments in terms of as much as we talk about protecting all of the city assets. It's also in important to kind of look at it from how do how are we preserving the water quality, the marine environment uh and uh how does that work with all the regulations that we're doing and how do we support that. So interesting comments again uh this discussion has been interesting. So with that I will end my uh um uh opening remarks and turn it over to the planning commission for question comments. I will just say um we can take comments in various forms however the commission

feels comfortable. If you have written comments a lot of it and you feel like you don't want to go over it line by line feel free to uh to give us a copy or we'll make a copy for you and and try and incorporate that into into the draft. But if you definitely feel that there are comments that you want to discuss that is worth discussing here and that um you want more information on uh let's definitely talk about it. We'll make a note of it and try to give you uh as the best information that we can. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. So with that, who would like to go first? Lead it off.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. K. Thank you very much for being here tonight. I appreciate it. as always, you do such an amazing job presenting everything. So, I've I've got a couple of questions uh just for some clarification issues and then a couple of comments and then I'll turn over the rest of my questions to you after the meeting and you can just take the the the slides. Sounds good.

Uh so, for wildfires and smoke, most of that comes from either Canada or within the US, wildfires in the forest or eastern Washington or in the state. Uh not sure what we as the city can do to prevent that other than do our fair share of making sure that we keep our areas clean and uh keep the trees growing. Uh that's just a comment. Uh so moving along to item number, it's on the goals and policies page. Page number 18. Item number one one Charlie 175 police uh it's written down here is existing policy and there's no current changes to it is to seek to maintain adequate police department staffing. I would I would like to see us change and get rid of seek to and just put down maintain adequate police department staffing. The reason why is leaving the word seek to maintain leaves a broad spectrum for a lot of various things to not have to meet and maintain our police department and we need that. That's just as critical as the fire department from everywhere else I've read. And my point being is on the very next page, page 19, item two, two D is in Delta 177, fire services. It is maintain fire protection staffing, not seek to maintain. So I'd like to see us make them both the same as just maintain our staffing as required for public safety. And I'll give these two to you afterwards just so you don't need to write it down. Um question.

What does drought have to do with transportation? I I just need to understand.

That's it. Um maybe um um Erin can help us uh with with that question, but that uh comment came from our Oakpack meeting and from our wash dot folks. um uh that we have interactions with in in the Mount Baker office regarding our plan and that comment both I think the the the extreme heat uh and drought as it impacts pavement is what I remember them mentioning um you know what impact it's having to that surface and how do we change that that was the understanding um Erin correct me if I'm wrong or if you have anything to add please feel Yeah, I'd be happy to add some additional context. So, um the gentleman from WashDot mentioned that even though uh Oak Harbor is a shoreline city and likely to or unlikely to anticipate extreme drought conditions, um the if drought were to uh occur in other parts of the state and then also Okar will be experiencing like more extreme heat like variables than it what they're used to. Um the pavement takes a toll in a different condition than what we're used to. So we would be planning for drought that's happening in nearby regions and the pavement conditions. And so that impacts public works planning and trying to make sure that the taxpayer dollars are going towards materials that are going to be resilient to those conditions. So, it's not like economic or like the actual wind and stuff is is being immediately impacted by drought. It's more of a

secondary impact that's happening regionally that he brought up. And so then we were like, okay, we'll talk to public works about trying to take in those considerations for future uh planning projects.

Okay, great. Thank you. Uh, in reference to that on page 55 of 59 under the I believe it was still underneath the Kimley Horn uh documents. It says assets SR20 drought impacts the soil under the concrete. Extreme heat impacts the concrete itself. Uh it might be feasible for us to reach out to some of the Midwest states who deal with extreme heat and extreme cold to figure out what they're doing so that we can meet that same requirement. Uh concrete, I don't know. But asphalt and extreme heat is definitely not good because it does melt and sink under weight. So uh anyhow just just a statement there. Uh I won't cover that one. I'll just give that one. Okay. So part of the climate resilience part that we're putting to the piece of this puzzle. Uh traffic impacts the climate as well as we all know and all the roundabouts that we're starting to put in are slowing traffic. It is not maintaining the flow of traffic. And I'm sure we could all talk about different roundabouts. It doesn't matter. It doesn't slow the traffic down. They're flying through at 40 50 m an hour. So just by putting it in, it's not really assisting us. Uh, and I know because I've almost been hit probably 50 times going to work in the morning down by Bant and Nort's Gate. So, uh, part of that I wanted to say is, uh, uh,

that was going to be a comment. Putting more of these roundabouts in in our city is not helping us.

Um, I can provide some reference to the roundabout conversation. Um at least for FACA specifically both the county and the city had sent comments back to WASHDOT saying that that was not our recommended choice. We did not get a lot of decision in that. Sometimes it comes from Washington State Department of Transportation WASHDOT and so that's what happened with this. There were other projects that we even saw as a bigger priority. And so just know sometimes the city has some ways that we can make comments or be involved in that process but we don't make all of the decisions. And so we are continuing to work on that. That is what the TPO group at the county works on and there are several municipalities and transit agencies involved in that and washd is on that call as well and that is some of the things that we are advocating for when we're part when we're attending those meetings. So I just want to clarify that.

Yeah, I appreciate it. Uh, Fakamaw was the least of my concerns, but it all in all I have not seen as a resident of Oak Harbor this has actually helped traffic flow. Maybe I don't see the big picture, but as someone who drives these roads just like you all every day, uh, it hinders it. And with I will throw this out there. This is something that maybe we need to to look into. The Faka Mallal roundabout since you brought it up. I was going to talk about that offline, but this this is going to be an issue. It has already had traffic backed up through the intersection of Altfield and 20. So, wait till the winter hits and the traffic is really backed up. We all know how that works on Altfield and and and 20 and Goldie and all that. That is that is it's going to be a showstopper on a major artery road. I'll leave that at that for us to revisit at a later date.

Go ahead. I just have one one quick question about the fac. So heading south, you're going up a up a grade. Um that's the only way really to get into Oak Harbor. These tractor trailer trucks, they don't start up a grade real easy. you know, they they hit that stop and they they chug up the hill and that's why the two lanes were kind of there. What what impact is having trucks stop at the roundabout and then try to get going and like you said, especially in the winter when it's slick, you know, I could definitely see it backing up to Haltfield Road. Yeah, I'm not a transportation engineer, so I'm going to own that. Um, but I will say That's fair.

I will say our city engineer is looking at that. he is studying it and watching it very carefully. He has seen some of the trucks go over it um and been watching that and because of a request that our council had regarding the speed limit because the speed limits were set at different um speeds that were going in and out of that um roundabout. So he is actually doing some additional studies around that to present to our council so that they understand that impact and so he will be looking at that roundabout more.

Yeah. I mean, it it seems like the way it was originally, you had two lanes there. One was a slow lane for the trucks to kind of creep up the hill. If they had a straight through bypass on that that far side for trucks to be able to use, that might alleviate some of that, too. Yeah, I I can share that feedback with the city engineer, but again, this is a wash out project, so I will make sure. Yeah, I I know it's kind of tricky when you start dealing with with 20 and all that stuff, but thank you.

Yeah. No, I will share that. All right. Uh on page 39 of 59 on the Kimley Horn document, uh the last paragraph says, "Residents located adjacent to unstable slopes along Southwest Scenic Heights Street and Scenic Heights neighborhood and Mountain Circle and Crescent Harbor neighborhood are more susceptible to landslide and significant structural damage. Historically, severe storms in 2006 and 2015 were recorded to have dollar losses totaling approximately thousands of dollars, respectively. As such, similar losses could potentially total similar monetary values are significantly higher. uh talk talking about this and I'm probably going to get yelled at from several different people, but one of the previous discussions were I guess my question is is if they live on a slope, they chose to live there. Shouldn't they be maintaining the slopes? Why is that part of the city's issue? Or is it? because and and and I don't mean to sound that wrong because I don't want anybody to lose their home. But at the same token, about 6 8 months ago, I posed the question about when we were looking at changing height restrictions. What about the people who paid a million half dollars for their home because of a view and now we're going to change the restrictions after they bought and then their value is no longer there? Well, that's not our responsibility to worry about. Now, we're worried about people who bought land on a cliff and we're worried about their land. I I'm a little concerned on why we're posing an issue for one set of folks and not another. I I think we need to be kind of fair here. I know one's dealing with environment, but at the same token, I bought my house where I bought it and they're fixing to cut down

a couple of thousand trees and I'm going to lose all of that nature and there's nothing I can do about it because that's where I bought. So, I guess I pose the question on why are we concerned with that? That's an insurance for that homeowner and their responsibility. Yes or no? Maybe no maybe maybe no answer at this point. That's okay. Yeah. No.

Yeah. No. No. That's that's a very good question and these are key components of why we do plans. Why is a plan? What's the public benefit in some of these policies that we have? So, uh when we talk about steep slopes or we talk about shoreline, etc. When the city was built and when these properties were developed, we didn't have all the environmental regulations in place or the requirement to review the risks involved with these hazards or anything like that. And so these uses have been developed um uh in the in the city historically. So in a way the city has zoning designations and land use designations that allow for properties to be developed with certain potential. So in that way um you know whether somebody chooses to live there and take the risks and so on uh even though it's their own um private decision uh that they chose to do that uh the fact that these uses are allowed uh in these slopes to be built is just a generally citywide issue to be considered about. Um secondly, I think these plans try to look at um the there's there needs to be a common understanding of what the issues are and what the measures for mitigation are. So the solution may not be a publicly funded way to secure it, but it may be a privately when the land redevelops, you're supposed to do certain mitigation or you're supposed to do some armoring or you're supposed to do something. Eventually, the expense of doing some improvements may still be at the

property owner level that chooses to live in those lands. However, these studies are intended to determine whether there needs to be additional regulations and requirements in order to make these safe. So, that's the public benefit in doing these studies. Uh it's not about making necessarily um um public infrastructure investments and that's still up to the city council to decide whether they want uh you know certain areas do they need public investment to make uh make these areas secure. That is still sometimes a choice that the community has to make. Uh but the studies are intended to from a public benefit standpoint to identify um these hazards, how to mitigate them and then eventually the implementation I think will come down to the individual property owners either through redevelopment or development permits of some sorts.

Okay. Thank you. And and the last the last thing I have Go ahead.

I that same thing I as as I was listening to him ask that question. I read it a little bit different, right? Like I don't see it as as our responsibility to maintain their slope or their yard or anything like that. But if you read the the paragraph right above that where it says extreme participation can or particip precipitation can cause secondary hazards like coastal erosion, liquidification, landslides and and mainly cause storm water overflows and loss of function. So, if you get a lot of rain and you have you have to deal with that storm water runoff, um you don't want it running off to where you're going to cause damage to somebody's house. Not saying that that the the shoreline and all that is our responsibility to maintain, but you by the same token, you don't want your storm water running off to to speed that along. Just like if I had a big parking lot and we have rain, I don't want the the water running off into the road creating a problem there. You see what I'm saying? That's I that's how I read it is that we have a responsibility to deal with the storm water runoff with extreme precipitation not to cause damage to these coastal areas. Absolutely. I mean that's a great point to bring up and if I can bring an implementation policy that we have that is related to exactly that is we require developers to do downstream improvements if the capacity is not sufficient. So if there's a development like for the Gary Oaks development I I think it's called Preston Heights now which is on going south end out of town by 24th there storm water drains you know uh east over the scenic heights and they had to do a study to make sure that the outfall over there would be able to handle the storm water runoff. It's a totally off-site improvement, but these plans and policies help us identify these requirements so that we can make sure

that these off-site improvements are done uh as development occurs. So, that's a great example.

Thank you for that clarification. Uh the last thing I have is kind of a request and I may have missed it, so if I did, let me know. But, uh, maybe we could put something in our new comp plan and and and some of our policies that since the environmental impact is is a new area uh, within within our plan, maybe we could add in there something because as we're talking about with new heat and we're going to build all these new houses and it's going to add concrete and it's going to add new roads. All that produces heat as well, radiant heat. Uh, and so maybe we can minimize the amount of concrete and make sure that we emphasize more grass uh, which absorbs water. Uh, yeah, it's more to maintain, but uh, it it'll actually reduce some of the heat, I believe. I don't know. I'm not an environmentalist, but I know for sure concrete is definitely the more concrete you put down, the more heat index you're going to have. Uh, and since we're talking environmental impact, maybe that might be something to look at. Not sure. Like I said, I'm not an environmentalist, but it makes sense to me. Uh, other than that, that's all I have. Mr. Chair K, appreciate your time, sir.

Very good. Thank you. Next up, anyone have any big thoughts? Go for it. Uh thank you, CAC. Um and that's my first uh first comments. I just want to say um um my time here on this board. I I want to focus a bit on communication. So I was hoping to hit some broad points that kind of maybe discuss some of the potential communication things. And I I'll give you an example sort of as my first point. Um, when going through and doing the research for this and trying to do my homework, I did find it a bit hard to find online um, the existing comm plan and I did find the the plan for revision online, but it was kind of disconnected on a linkage. Um, I was just wondering as a general comment um, about you know potentially making the comp plan a little bit more accessible on our website. Is there is there some way that we can make it more accessible on our website? maybe to link it to the since it's a primary thing that we're really focusing on making a link closer to the homepage and organizing the documents as we're going through so that the public has a little more easy access to follow this process. Um I don't know if you were the right one to discuss for that or if you got someone I could potentially

um bring that up to. I'll jump in on that. Um, so what I can do is if you have those comments, I can let our communications officer Maggie Aguilar know and she will um take a look at that and make those adjustments on the website. So I'm taking notes as you're talking. Excellent. Thank you.

Um, and just going on with um again more communication. You mentioned that this the various aspects of this plan were reviewed by police, fire, uh, etc. And that's excellent. I was just wondering is there any plan to get say the parks and reccks commission to at least have a presentation to them? I I know that we're the ones sort of making the recommendation to go to the city council, but you know the the entire parks and recreation uh section of this would be useful to have their input in some way, shape or form. Um, I I believe and I I can follow up with our uh parks and rec director Brian Smith, but I believe he did share these with his the park board.

Okay. Um so I I know that there was a discussion related to that with the park board. So um I think they did that. Excellent. Yeah. And and I actually attended the meeting to provide some clarification. And so I was actually there when they discussed some policies. So

I I missed that. I tried going through their their previous minutes and I I missed when missed that in their previous minutes in the past. Um but along with the review uh I believe the fire department has the responsibility for um uh the emergency uh emergency action plan. I might be getting that wrong. the emergency response plan. Uh with the new um uh climate section and identifying potential hazards, has the fire chief and the fire department looked at that for potential response? I think, and I'll let Erin address it, I think the tools have identified that these facilities need to be reviewed um and and looked at because they were just identified as potential hazards for further review.

I think the fire chief and the police chief are aware of that. However, I don't think we have actual steps to what that review really means because it's just an identifier at this point. Yeah, I saw in their particular sections they reviewed for instance with the fire department buildings and same with police um department. They reviewed their own. I didn't see anything in their particular sections that the maybe the a responsibility for review of this new section or at least some sort of ownership of potential new emergencies or something along those lines might be might be in their purview since they're already taking some of this. Gotcha. Um I can add some context.

Go ahead.

Oh um so there's one important factor to consider when we're making this new element. There's already quite a bit of emergency planning in place and that's when the emergency happens. So when the fire happens, when the um earthquake or something like that, there's a lot of already there's a multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan and then the fire departments do have a lot of planning for when it takes place. But this comprehensive plan is more looking at the long-term changes and steps before that were to happen. Let's say like before the fire happens, is there any way we can adapt to the smoke and the community can just be obviously we're not going to stop the fire if it's happening in Canada or something. Is there steps we can take land use wise to help us relieve some of the impacts from that? And then the same goes for flooding as well. So we're not this comp plan is not talking about when the flooding is happening, people are going to evacuate and go this way and this way. There's already plans in place for that and those are under FEMA. But this is like if flooding is going to happen in a few years, which we've seen in the projections it will, are there land use changes we could make now that would help save lives and property damage uh in the future. So those kind of smaller steps, just keep that in mind.

Thank you. That that definitely uh adds a bit of perspective onto that. Um I also had a structural question um maybe that you can as well answer um directly to this. Uh the new section is purely focused on the new requirements or is is this potentially an area that we can generally list hazards to the city. You know specifically earthquakes that's not changed by climate change. I'm not I'm not I'm just asking like that particular hazard doesn't appear to have a very specific section throughout our our comp plan and yet it's a very major risk to the city. Um and this type of review probably would be very useful for that type of uh you know earthquake and tsunami hazard from Cascadia and a north Seattle fault rip that kind of stuff. Is that appropriate here or is that not allowed by the the the policy or not the policy but the requirements?

It's not that it's not allowed. It's just that it's not particularly what the grant or the intent was originally when we started the element. So the state would like cities to make sure that we're reducing impacts from climate change as much as possible. So, we're not that that definitely the the earthquake discussion is a little bit of a separate topic. Now, that's not to say the state would prohibit you at all from from doing any planning that you would like on your own if you'd like to instill your own policies um or any actions in place and start and start doing those. There's there's no requirement against that, but it's definitely not what was in especially as a as a consultant and what the state is looking at for the city that wasn't in the scope for sure.

Um, so maybe this question is to CAC. um understood that we don't have grant money to redo for all those things, but potentially the section being a bit broader and at least mentioning other potential major hazards and that it be that the city should look at those as a policy um and do a similar level of of due diligence about the danger to the city. I mean, just in doing my review here, just as for instance, the um Washington State Department of Natural Resources has great GIS information on potential tsunami risks and it has a little pin on the center of Wind Jammer Park that says uh 6.7 ft deep water swell will go over Wind Jammer Park, you know, potentially if if Cascadia goes. So that's a major flood and danger risk, but um you know it's not really covered in our comprehension plan as as as thoroughly. Yeah. I mean if other members of the commission are not opposed to it, we can see if we can include some draft language. I mean I think um I I I don't know how much I mean I think we can and Erin correct me if I'm wrong. I mean we can we go beyond the scope of what the state has said to address earthquakes or is it considered a climate change type hazard or is it just it's it's an hazard that can happen right at any time irrespective of climate change. And so as you mentioned there are emergency u plans to to you know what do you do when you get one but what kind of policies um do we can we look at in order to address something like that?

Yes. So um we can certainly address the planning commissioner's comment. I just don't think we're going to be able to do the in-depth level of like the impact of earthquake on specific assets as we have demonstrated in the memo that he's reading. I don't know if we would be able to go back and like do that in depth analysis. So, as a as a like alternative to being able to do that at this time, I would say you should be incorporating a policy starting that stepping stone in the future so that the city can start allocating some budget or some time or some resources to actually earthquake impacts on the community and how you want to start taking those steps. It's just we're not going to be able to go back and do that analysis at this time. And so I think that to build off of that right we do have right like in the government services element right there is a goal and a policy related to emergencies and natural disasters and that's very broad right but maybe some more detailed about like how we c like what emergencies and what type of natural disasters are coordinated through the emergency management plan or like specific things we want to focus on. I think that right cuz like you're right that earthquakes don't necessarily like pop up here explicitly and I think that that might be a sort of in line with like our value policies to say like we recognize earthquakes and these other things like tsunamis as potentially like needing direct attention. We fit it into like um I think it's goal three or policy three of the government services that might sort of mesh all that together. Yeah. So I think that the the general idea here is maybe do a review to say if we drag all the things I identify, hey, all the things that say something along the lines of identify hazards and plan

for them as a general section that this anchors because it's it's really well done as far as identifying hazards and planning for them, but broaden it out to be more than just climate impacts. Even though that right now the the body of the detail is climate impacts, but we could, you know, we could use that as a good pattern to expand to other potential hazards that maybe deserve as much or more attention u due to their potential severity. Um I'll continue on with the the you know kind of the broad things that I've um I've got on here. I have a lot of detailed comments and and K like you said I'll I'll give I'll hand them off to you after this or at least uh find a way of getting them to you after this. Um but broadly um I had a the the park section seems very how to put this um wish list oriented and uh and I see a lot of language inside of there that isn't actionable and isn't measurable. Um, and you know, it would be great if we could do a review of, you know, kind of actionability and measurability, and I have individual comments on those, and I'll I'll hand those off to you. But things along the lines of, you know, we should get extra data, but it doesn't say things that's actionable, like we shall present once a year to the city council this extra data. Um, you know, that's the difference between actionability and just a kind of a wishlist thing. Um, that's a general comment for all sections, but I'd say I'd argue that the parks section has has a lot of that very general unactionable or unmeasurable kind of stuff.

Um, and then very specific to the park section, uh, I don't see that it mentions the trade-off between, um, open space as a good good thing for people to enjoy and walk through and and how open space in the city forces the city to spread out more. So if your goal is to preserve beauty and natural forests, then by saying I'm going to have big parks inside the city, that means I've got to have more city outside eating into our parks and forests. Um, so there's quite a few comments inside or quite a few goals and things inside the parks that just say space for space's sake. It's not to say we shouldn't have parks. I the general feel for me is that they should be a lot more targeted about why we should be preserving space and planning strategically about the needs of the city as it grows and how that space is critical to the internal health of the city and how the trade-off of expanding the city out um for that extra space that's been taken up in um you know should be should be weighed at each one of those decisions. Does that make sense? And I again I have specific comments on these that I can give you. It's just a broad area for the parks area.

Well, depending on how detailed your comments are, I may want to pre preface that my comments by saying well the parks and recreation um and open space plan is going to be updated in a separate effort. So

the directions to the existing staff was just this is the existing utilities and comment on the existing utilities. We're not going to try and create a new workflow because they they have workflows, they have work programs that that they're hoping to base on the new plan that doesn't sync with our existing plan. So instead of spending a lot of time in in this at this time in the comp plan and trying to get into the details, they wanted to reserve a lot of it for when the actual parks plan planning comes up because then a lot more detail in terms of their operations actions and goals will get reflected. And this is not a a full review of the parks and recreation plan itself. This is just the policy. So they are just doing what I want to say a satellite review or a flyby review of these policies to get us through this planning effort. And so that's why maybe a lot of it is still left general. Um but they are I know Brian has a lot more detailed comments on the policies. A lot more changes he wants to tackle with when the adoption is just that we don't have the bandwidth right now to consider a lot of changes to the policies as an individual discussion topic. parks isn't a very interesting topic and the whole community wants to get involved and so um they're trying to to channel that for a specific effort and we're also not trying to rehaul the entire parks recreation plan with this round of review. I'll just say that not saying that we don't want to accommodate changes. I'm just trying to keep the changes general at this time if they're not hurting us or harming us because a lot of this will change in a year or two. A lot of our transportation policies will change in a year. A lot of our storm water policies, water system

policies will change in a year or two um because they're all being updated as the 20-year plan and we'll get more updated policies for this. So with that that actually rolls into another generic comment I had. It seems like the the plan we have a lot of plans that actually this plan would would be delegating to but should give you know uh give direction to. So for instance, you know, the planning that you just mentioned, um why wouldn't it make sense for the park section to set the authority to delegate that section to a different planning effort and then scope it and then remove the goals, specific goals or maybe at least remove the specific policies and keep the high level goals and say the planning and detailed work of that is delegated off to another plan. that would help keep this fresh because you have the smaller planning effort that is getting the attention and keep it focused on the high level goals and the high level requirements. Um, is that something that is acceptable in uh in this this plan? I'm not sure of the legal requirements to for what should be documented in here.

It's a it's a choice of the community. Um it I mean the there's no prescription in terms of how it should be done. Uh there are communities that will have four sometimes five or six overarching goals in their comp plan that directs their parks and recreation plan which is then a 20-year plan and holds more details. And then there are communities that will just have a separate parks and recreation plan, take the policies from that and put it in their comprehensive plan as a way to just bring consistency. So we are of the second kind with the parks and recreation plan has been its own plan. Uh before there was a comp plan, there was a parks and recreation plan. So it has had its own uh updates uh as it has gone through. And so we've um um tried to incorporate that in with the GMA and the comp plan and and into the policies, but our comp plan goals and policies just basically reflect what's in the parks and recreation plan. So when they update that, we'll get those policies and update our comp plan with the annual amendment process and we'll go and update all our policies at that time. Um, so when they go to update their parks and recreation plan, their consultants or whoever is working for them will be asked to review our comp plan for consistency and so they'll have suggestions and changes to them. So would it be valuable then to put that process at least document that process in that section in the section you know at the I don't unfortunately don't have it sitting in front of me but the uh comp plan for each section has some great overviews of metadata like you know population or you know you know firefighters per population that kind of stuff at the top. Since this is effectively a subordinate to the parks and recreation plan as you're describing

it, um would would it be valuable to to describe that subordinate relationship inside the comprehensive plan so that someone reading it understands that this is right here? What you're seeing is not fresh because because of that and this is really where you should be looking and it's only added for reference. Yeah, the the there's a section of the existing comprehensive plan that introduces the comp plan and has all of the referencing documents that are referenced into the comp plan and the state allows you to do it by reference. So if you reference your comp plan to say um the sewer element reflects all the policies of the sewer comprehensive sewer transportation plan or whatever you know you can. So your comp plan extends into all of these other plans through references. Um so all of those become part of the comp plan by reference. So you can you can connect those documents by in in the comp plan as you mentioned establish a process in terms of what the connection is with each one of them.

Yeah. And mentioning as a reference seems to it might be because I was definitely confused that by that point. I I didn't you know I tried to read through these sections and it never once I never once was uh able to to make that connection. So if others if I wasn't able to make the connection others might so it might be worth some wording right there to make it explicit at the point of use inside the document to make the document more usable right like down below here are goals and policies but this is these are goals and policies taken from this plan um and this plan is subordinate to that very explicitly right there even though it's included other otherwise or other locations. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. we can include that in the description.

Um let's see. Um there is also just a general theme I I see in many of these goals and policies of regional. I hear it often especially one of their goals is uh to to promote a regional ballpark, but then it doesn't define any kind of regional ties to make that happen. um or it just seems like they're trying to get a grandiose word in there without saying how it actually become regional. Is Island County getting involved? Is Kville getting involved? Um but this regional aspect I see worded in a couple different places. And again, I've got some detailed examples I'll give off to you after this. Um wherever I see the word regional, I would like to understand what that regional tie means. um and not just make it sound more important because we've got a regional ballpark. No. How how what's the meaning behind that word there? Does that make sense?

Yeah. I I mean I think the intent is to keep it general

and I think you're asking for more specificity and it's just changed over time. when uh sometimes the consensus on when how to do something is cannot be reached or at the planning stage is not important. We keep our comments general. So when the planning for a regional facility does take on then all the details are worked out in terms of what is this a regional facility, who should the partners be, what is the unlocal agreement. there's a lot of details that can be captured once a project is uh decided to be implemented on. So um so usually the plan an idea is captured in the comp plan so it doesn't get lost but you usually have subsequent plans and the timing and opportunity and financing in place that can come up. So you I view the comprehensive plan as having ideas farther than 20 years. Even though it's a 20-year comprehensive plan, there are ideas that have been carried over multiple updates because the time and the opportunity was not there to do it within a certain time and uh the some of the ideas are not ripe. However, there's a desire from the community members to have that as an option when you consider some ideas. So, um, you know, um, the community in the past wanted to capture the idea of shoreline redevelopment. Whether you had funding for it or not, or whether you knew how you were going to do it or not, it was just an important feature that they needed to capture. And if you feel like there's a facility that you want to have more funding than just the city or maybe serving more than just the city, uh, the scale is large, but it's just an idea. you just haven't laid out all the framework for actually getting there. You still want to capture the idea. I

think those are how these some of these uh policies may have gotten in their ideas to explore uh a regional facility or something like that. um and to keep it in the radar of the community as wants and desires and needs as you go into the 20-year uh practice even though you didn't have the funding or the mechanism to make some of these happen right away as as someone's trying to to read it all through when I when I read some of these um the I think that maybe I understand the the trying to keep them broad and all that but with a fresh eye there's insufficient details for me to understand where would where I would begin if I were to take that policy and try to implement it.

Um that's where I'm coming from like the regional or other comments.

Absolutely. I want to say I I wish we had the resources and the wherewith to implement every policy in the comp plan and I just want to say upfront that that is not what we're going going to aim for. It's it's a it's a it's a collection of ideas and document that gets implemented over a long period of time. So uh we don't want to limit ourselves to capturing only what's practical in the 20 years. I think that's very limiting and doesn't allow us to be creative. We do want to have that creativity and have the opportunity to to explore things. So we want to keep it wide. So that's why some of these are so general. You may think why why do we have this policy in here? It's a it's a common sense, you know, those kind of things, but we still have to state it uh in order to prove intention in when we're applying for grants uh in order to support an existing regulation that we already have in our books. We want that backbone support in our comp plan. So, there are some policies in here that are just meant for that. Not all of them are meant to become a product or some type of implementation. They're also there to support our regulations that we have. Mhm.

Um, those are the the big general comments I've got. I've got very specific comments throughout everything and probably if you have specific comments, I would recommend giving it to Sarah so have a copy of it. It gets into the minutes so other commissioners can see the comments as as as well. Um, and so that would be the best way. If you have any comments, please give it to Sarah. We'll just make a copy and that way it just becomes part of the record as a comment that's coming back to us. Is it possible to give you an email of it after this or give uh possibly tomorrow? I want to These were all written from me. I'd rather like get in a format that would be a little more generic to to send off to you. Yeah, sure. All right. I'll try to get that to you in the next day or two. Thank you.

Thank you. That's awesome. Good comments. Anyone else next up?

Thank you, chair. I just want to say I love this conversation, right? um you know from the council perspective you know we're actually looking to this group to do exactly what you're doing which is the heavy lifting of of the document. I mean ultimately there's going to be a point where they're going to come to this body and ask for your recommendation involving uh these documents and forwarding them that recommendation on to council and council is counting on you guys for this deep dive right uh we're counting on you to look at existing policies and see if those make sense you know this comp plan of course you know just a little I guess for for anybody who might be listening and and just for I guess my own gratification You know the the comp plan is something that we update every year, right? The the difference is this year we've been mandated to update our comp plan and look at our comp plan with relation to an expanding number within the city, right? Which uh a normal comp plan update we may come through with what maybe three or four items within a comp plan update in an annual basis. So terminology what you're referring to are we do annual amendments

and what we're doing right now is an update. So this is a minor difference but yes that's kind yeah you know what we do our updates typically every 10 years

10 years. Um so this is some heavy lifting right this is this is um setting a much bigger broader plan than when we're just bringing forward an amendment that addresses you know one thing that we're working on. At the same time, you know, to to to get to Jeff's point, which I I loved about the the generalities, you can you you can be too general, but then you can be too specific. I think one of the items we have being removed from the the plan is the idea of building a performing arts center in Wind Jammer Park because we actually noted in there in Wind Jammer Park. And I I don't know why we quite frankly did that because I mean the efforts still moving forward. Um I I think we've just all decided that in Wind Jammer Park is not necessarily where it's going to end up. Um but you can see where getting too specific also kind of throws everything um off. But uh yeah, I mean this is a big thing. You know, we're we're looking at updating this plan to accommodate all of this growth. And so any addition that you see here should be an addition to make sure we're handling that additional growth. Any omission that you see here, the thing that you're crossing off should be again keeping in mind that we're handling additional growth, right? And additional growth do mean things more regional and stuff because the reality is let's face it parks and recreation system serves the greater community, right? But but you're right. What what what does region mean? Um are we talking about the north end of the island? We talking about Island County? Are we talking about island and part of Scadget County? You know, those would are all valid questions. But I I just wanted to say I I love the deep dive cuz cuz that's really what what as a council we're we're hoping that this committee does. We rely upon you guys to go in look at all of these little individual

questions. even if you think it's something minor, that's what we're counting on you to do. Um so that when this document moves forward to us, it's been refined um uh obviously through public comment and through through through different meetings, but quite frankly through this body. So just want to say love it and uh I I appreciate you guys' time and and efforts and and again look forward to when we get you a full body up here, right? because uh there's been a few of you carrying a pretty heavy load for quite some time. So, appreciate you.

Absolutely. Thank you very much. All right, my turn. Um I and I'll I have some specific things, but mostly I wanted to build off of of what was said earlier, right? think that um to echo about the parks and wreck element um I think the economic development and government services existing policies I think it makes sense to go through those a little bit more and see like which ones can become more actionable. I think a lot of them have a lot of like should like we should consider this and like I think you can pull out some of that like language to say should and just if we want to consider I think that that's a great way to to navigate that. Um I there are two other plans that the city and then sort of the region have right the active transportation plan which I think would be useful to fit into the parks and wreck um element somewhere to make reference to that to say like our goals of expanding the pedestrian and bicycle network are to serve a purpose and they can connect to recreation opportunities and they can in in of themselves be recreation. So I think that that would be a useful sort of call out to say that that not only does that impact transportation but parks and wreck as well. I think that that's a useful thing to to line up. And then similar with our economic development element, we have our comprehensive economic development strategy that the county and the region did. And I think that there's there's language in that plan to that can be connected to our economic development sort of overarching goals. And so I think that that is a useful another useful sort of connection point. And I do like the idea of of saying like we do have all these

sort of very detailed very specific plans on how we implement and how we sort of directly engage with projects. And the comprehensive plan sort of is that sort of binding focus that takes you know gives those project those more project specific plans direction. I think that that's a really useful way and how we communicate that by either you know calling them out specifically or providing links in a digital format. I think all of that is really useful. Um there I think there was a specific policy well there's another specific policy that I think would be useful as it relates to parks and wreck and then sort of the equity component of the climate element is sort of more proactive mapping of access, right? And so in the context of parks and wreck and open space to say like here are here are our parks. I'm from Iowa so it becomes two of the same word are our um mapping where those parks exist and if we define uh a radius around them that can be a proxy for access whether that's you know a/4 mile or um 15 minutes or however we want to do that. think that that potentially provides that sort of um binding of why are we looking to improve or acquire or or navigate park space in the city? Where is it most targeted to do the most public good? I think that that's a useful sort of data point to build into our comprehensive plan as a as a way to evaluate those um those facilities. Um, and then I think that really the the big one, not the big one,

um, one that I noticed and I wanted to bring up here. So, this is page 24, policy 6.6e. I think this is in the government services um, maybe. Sorry. Where'd it go? 6E. 6E. Yes. Um,

yes. So, um, in so 6D and 6E in the government services element or government services section of Nope, it's element. Yep. Um, we talk about the planning commission, right? And we talk about our our public engagement and our advisory groups. And I guess this is me trying to say, are there additional benefits, other ways to advertise or provide recognition to like our volunteers and these boards to say like as a way to improve sort of that um outreach and volunteerism for them, right? Like is there a way that at a high level in our policies we can say these groups are important. We want to make sure that they are fully staffed and fully like volunteered and there is additional sort of money where the city's mouth is to to do that. Not actual money, but like hypothetically. Um, I think that that's a really interesting one to sort of see if there's proposed policy revisions that could be useful in sort of that retention. Um, I think that that's all I really had. Um yeah, I mean great work as always. Um I think yeah with our water resources and the climate element trying to find ways that we can put policies to support Anacortis and and how you know what we can do as a end user of their system, what we can do to be better partners in that I think is really useful. Um, and then just sort of a a broad thing about part of at least how I interpret the climate resiliency element is that like not only is it preventing or not only is its sort of goal to prevent adverse impacts to

property and and people, but it's also like how do we

how do we protect them? like how do we protect the people through either programs or through infrastructure or regulations in like those specific areas, right? Like going back to like wildfires, like we are not going to be able to prevent wildfire like but how do we as a city protect those who are vulnerable to smoke or to you know working outside when those when we're in like summer heat and all those types of things. So I think that that's sort of where those fit together. Um, so that's all I have. Um, I think that everything else was covered pretty well and if you all have any last questions, any other last thoughts? Sorry, I had uh I I realized I had two cleanup items I I missed, you know, that were kind of more generic or or were an informative bit. Um, just one generic thing. There's a lot of kind of meta information at the top of each of these sections. Um, can you talk about how that's going to be updated? Like for instance, talking about the number of firefighters, the number of police, the number of, you know, firefighters per per thousand that we currently have. All that information is obviously becoming stale. Is when in the process does that get updated? Um, with this comp plan, hopefully we'll have all of that existing data updated. Um, are you talking about just the comp plan? Are you talking about other plans?

Just the comp plan specifically because, you know, we're reviewing these sections and this is obvious an area section that needs to be reviewed, but it's probably too early to review it. I just want to make sure that I didn't see where in the process that the stuff that's that's just pure data gets updated, so to speak. Yeah. Um I'm thinking um Erin that um you know the language that supports these policies and in a document format that provides all the supporting information around these policies will come along with the draft plan. Is that how that would work? Okay.

Yeah. We've already been in the process of updating all the necessary data but then the EIS will also incorporate additional data analysis on top of that. that we're going to incorporate. So, it's kind of a very long process, but ideally, we would time it up all up where the full release of the full draft would have all the data and the policies. So, you would get the existing conditions with the policies in full context.

Sweet. And and just along with that um is there a plan to find sort of the surprising changes to help us understand and quantify policies or goals that might need to be adjusted due to surprise? You know, changing the number of police officers by two is not a surprise, but the the department doubling in size could be a surprise worthy of note on policies or goals. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And sorry Pat to jump in, but we've been trying to mitigate that. um by delay by like releasing these policies in the way that we have so far because of we did the uh utilities and government services or sorry we did some of the elements uh earlier on but then we're doing the land use a little bit later so that we have the EI because this is all kind of this is all dependent on the growth projection that's being accepted by the city for this comp plan update and that impacts services and utilities which impacts you know police and blah blah blah blah. So there's still a little bit of a chain reaction during the EIS that we're going to be flushing those answers out a little bit. So that's why we've kind of put some policies up here at the front to do an early check of policies but then we'll be coming back around once the EIS goes through. K I don't know if you want to add additional context.

Yeah. No, I think you captured that. I think we're trying to uh gain input in terms of what's important to the commission and the community as we go through the review and not kind of tackle a lot of these comments at the end. So we're um going to um so what you're looking at is just like the raw policies alone, none of the supporting documents. We're not looking at the maps that are in each of these. You know, if you look at the existing element, the economic development section has some stats on employment and all of that stuff. So, all of that information will get updated. These are just the policy review. So, information such as what you were mentioning in terms of how the park policies, how they're incorporated between the parks plan and the comp plan, all of that discussion will come in those introductions and supporting material that's written. So, we're not uh we don't have that drafted yet. We're just kind of looking only at the policies at this point. And so, that's why it looks it looks a little crude and unsupported. Um but the supporting information is all going to be coming later on.

Sure. No, I I understand. Uh I think it's just you not just uh I think it'd be helpful especially as we review more and more sections to say it the early early data says we have a surprise here that might be worthy of of pointing out you know um to help us cage our comments about policies and and where we might need to focus. Um we've been understanding that exact data is not in and won't be in for a while. just just focusing on the surprise elements to help us kind of you know give this the early peak so to speak. Um the the other um the other comment I had was actually because uh I I just uh you know full disclosure I live next to a developer who talks to me regularly about his problems. Um and there was a lot of discussion about um there's a lot of discussion in the comprehensive plan about um permitting and trying to be efficient and all these different things. And uh he mentioned that um he mentioned that a permit kind of shepard program would be useful for helping developers work through problems. Um, I don't know enough about this subject at all to make a comment on whether this is a good idea or not. Um, but I wanted to bring it up to this group here that has a lot more experience to, you know, to try to get a question of is this an area where we would want to potentially look at more policies or goals around permitting to help support developers with their problems. Um his specific you know concept was the permitting process is actually more of a uh a partnership and less of a sanity check where you know the partnership is trying to find solutions to problems not just

to point out problems and walk away. Um and I reviewing our current permitting and and and all that I didn't see anything that specifically tries to point that concept out that the goal of permitting isn't to stop you. to help you figure out a good path through things. Um, so again, it's a general comment. I didn't have a specific way to craft language or think about that specifically and you know, the group here probably has a bit more experience and I just wanted to bring it up as a possible discussion point since it was an actual comment from a a local person does development. I'll leave it at that.

Sure. Yeah. Um, in the context of like the comprehensive plan, CAC, I guess this is a question for you, CAC, do we have I didn't see in like government services or do we have policies around the permitting process or is that something that sort of gets handled through municipal code and would be better in a different sort of context?

Most of the permitting processes are highly regulated. I'm not sure what type of policies we would want to consider. A lot of it is just following state rules for timelines and things like that and um um it's more more internal policy than actually anything external. Um so um I can understand I mean over the years just uh um you know we've had um always um challenges uh between permitting and development or or developers based on various um investment levels, interest levels, uh and things like that. So, um it's more of an internal policy than a comp plan policy if you if you ask me. Uh but, uh you know, the the city went u from um paper permitting to online permitting just about 3 4 years ago. So, um it is a process that is uh vastly improved since 5 10 years ago. Um but however the new system um brings uh more tracking and more communication between all the departments and better review and efficiency. It is uh impacting maybe some people that are shy to online systems and um we have several um u cases where people come in and get our assistance. We we've had stations in the front of our office where we can walk people through our online system uh basically in order to get them used to it. Um so we we've had those kind of uh training opportunities for people were

difficult but I mean but this is an ongoing and changing circumstances. So, um I'm not sure if uh permitting um would be I'm not sure how uh permitting policies adopted in the comp plan can turn around to be more implemental implementable based on regulations etc that keep changing uh constantly. So I think we this is more of an internal um stuff. I don't know if it's a policy at the comp plan level. That's my initial take on on trying to consider something like that.

I think if we want to continue this conversation, I think we can if we don't have anything left for the comprehensive plan process, we can move to our commissioner updates. Does that or do you have anyone else have any comprehensive plan questions? Okay, I think that that um I have one additional thought on that. Sorry, C. Do you mind if I say something?

No, please. Um, so I do, uh, this is just going again off of what the commissioner just mentioned about the developer permitting stuff. Um, we haven't talked about the housing policies yet for the comprehensive plan that we will do like a first dip into housing and land use, but it's going to be quite a big conversation for this periodic update, but we haven't started that yet. like there's a housing needs assessment that we perform and you know we haven't talked about that with the planning commission yet again because we've been kind of slowly getting into the the more intricate topics of this update. Um, but I will say that a recent trend that's been happening is like as people are going into the housing issues that they're facing, there are certain times where some communities during the periodic update have been like, "Okay, we we so urgently need this particular type of housing that they will start planning um easier ways or incentives or other opportunities to ease the permitting process for that specific type of housing. And so with the new housing requirements that are coming from the state, you're required to plan for like multiple different types of housing. You can't just say like all your housing is single family anymore. So what we're finding in the data is that some cities will find there's like a huge lack of like triplex duplex type housing. They have a huge deficit and they're like, "Oh, okay shoot. We need to expedite a permitting process so that we actually are able to see some recovery in those unit types. And that's coming, this is all directly from the state because those unit types are historically more affordable to a certain lower income bracket because we're supposed to be planning for income levels. So, we haven't gotten to that discussion yet, but that's kind of alluding to what the plan commissioner

just mentioned. Um, so you can keep that in mind for a later discussion point when you're looking through the housing policies.

Yeah, I mean that's a good point. I mean we can target very specific development types for incentives and fee waiverss or etc while we look at the policies and those type of policies can be captured in the thing. But in terms of actual permit processing, I think a lot of those are just in either state regulations or the municipal code in terms of how we tackle them. And then internal workflows in terms of whether it's online and how they get done and and how um an applicant is involved in the process. We're continually refining that in order to do that. And our goal at least in development services is to try and uh give the applicant as much information ahead of time uh uh educate them as much as possible in terms of what they need to do with the current regulations etc. Um but we um definitely want um we'll say um we we do come across a lot of ideas that just won't work in Oak Harbor sometimes. um and we give them all the information on current plans. We give them the options on how to change, how to tackle the change and so on. So that um they can consider all their options. So we try and provide from a development review standpoint, I know our development review reviewers across all departments are trying to do the best to accommodate what we think is viable for for OK cover in the safest way possible. um making sure that our fire department is involved in the review, our building department is involved in the review and that we make sure that whatever is being proposed can be in the long run um you know serviced by our urban utilities and our emergency services as well. So um

sometimes we get changes and requests that pushes the threshold of how we can deliver emergency services and safety for some of the construction types. And so um but we are uh as a development community and as planning agency we're open to a lot of changes and have been continually and I think planning commission is aware if you look at the last three or four years worth of agenda we bring forth a lot of code amendments to try to continually keep the development community's options open uh for development. So just to to close the loop on this, the reason why I brought it up in the first place is because uh page 190 of the comp plan 25 the packet goal 7 specifically talks about permitting process and goals around permitting. That's why I brought this this into the discussion at this point. But I think that it likely is appropriate to look at it later on. But if I will add if if that is appropriate there, then we may want to look at removing the the permitting stuff that's in the government services and potentially moving it to those other locations.

Thank you. Yeah, I was just going to comment, you know, I mean, the the reality is, you know, whether or not the comp plan I would think it would be a place that we would put how we're dealing with ongoing policies and in a because it is a broad swoop and and you know to to what you address, K, you're right, we are constantly reviewing and updating where allowable our planning and permitting policies to create for efficient policy. policies that allow for the construction of uh all types of housing as needed by the community because that's a constantly changing uh pace and and maybe that's what goes in the comp plan, right? The the we're actually doing that. Um it it should be something we should be continuing to do. We should be reviewing and updating these plans every time we get an opportunity to make that as efficient as a possible to to be able to build what the community needs um here. And those needs are going to change and and how we uh um how we change those policies to fulfill those needs are going to change over the life of this comp plan. But I think that statement remains steady. Um and and and back to some of the comments uh you know about uh open space and park plans and stuff you know I guess another thing would be you know the the city's commitment to maintain an open space plan. I mean that that is you know part of I I would think a long-term commitment and part of our long-term comprehensive plan and maybe that is where that addresses that link internally within the comp plan and of course that maybe is your creation of that link to that open space plan uh within the comp plan is the fact that we are just going to uh maintain and update that plan moving forward.

Absolutely. And just FYI, if you haven't seen the park plan or if you have seen it, there are um the actual 20-year plan does have um I think uh a sort of level of service analysis. I like Commissioner Josh's suggestion on connecting the active transportation plan um because I think the park plan identifies in the write up somewhere that um uh find ways to connect parks and schools. So when the park plan at one time was being developed, it was explored as a way for uh a drop off site for children so that you know a school bus or some car pooling can happen to schools without having to take all the cars to the schools. You go take it to the close by parks and you carpool and then the kids go to school. So th all those type of ideas were floated when the park plan was updated during the time. And so there were some policies and some written descriptions written in order to explore trails and connecting pathways between parks and recreation centers and schools as a first priority. So, if you look at the actual parks plan, there is a core um development area which is kind of, you know, if you look at Whidby Avenue that goes east west, it's one of the few streets that actually goes through all of Oak Harbor through east west. And if you notice, all the most of the schools and the fire stations and the utilities are located on Whidby Avenue on both sides. And so the parks uh plan actually identifies that area as a priority for your bike lanes and your pedestrian pathways and connections. So at a very general level, it says focus your your your resources in trying to make this area um connectable. And then the park plan also has a long-term trails that

connect all the way around the city uh in you know connecting county resources, Joseph Woodby State Park and so on. So, you know, more than a 20-year plan. It also talks about a 70-year plan or a 100red-year plan to get these trail connections. Um, but also the park plan has a level of service analysis in terms of walkability in terms of neighborhood parks and community parks and identifies areas where we don't have neighborhood parks in the city. So, um, for example, the area east of Midway, north of Pioneer all the way to Whidby, doesn't have a park. Um, and even though it's in the center of town and it's cut off by major, you know, look at all the other neighboring neighborhoods, there are parks all in those neighborhoods, but you have to cross a major street uh if you live in that neighborhood if you want to go to a park. And so the park plan identifies those areas and and there have been conversations in the past on whether we have too much parks. That was that was one of the conversations. It's called the parks recreation and open space plan. I'll give you a little history on that. And first it was the parks and recreation plan when the when GMA first plan was adopted and I think there was actually an uh an advocacy group that came forward and said oh covers comprehensive plan does not address open space and it needs to address open space and I think either there was a growth management hearings board or somebody that said yes the covers comp plan should consider it and so the parks recreation and open space plan was created and parks were supposed to uh to encompass some of those open space needs in the community and that justified the need to have more neighborhood parks as you had mentioned with the growth that you experience in the community with the density that you

experience in the community. How do you manage the open space? And Oak Harbor is actually blessed with about 30 or so neighborhood parks. There's not that many communities that have that many neighborhood parks. At one time there was uh and this is maybe 10 15 years ago uh for budgetary reasons because the parks department had so many uh requests and so many needs for maintenance and improvements just because of the amount of land that they uh that the parks department maintains. There was discussions on whether some of these parks should be considered to be abandoned and turned over into and so there was some conversation about how to preserve those. And so I think with more and more densification the policy that you mentioned how do we balance between you know growth in the city and you know without taking up the space outside of the city how do we maintain that balance is by preserving those those park spaces over a long period of time so that you can maintain that open space as the density occurs and I think Oak Harbor is situated well enough as long as it preserves its existing parks and acquires new neighborhood parks as grows, I think you should be able to support and balance that open space. And I think the parks plan, at least the current one, captures it. When they update it, we'll have to see if most of that information transfers in that. And so, some of this is captured in our existing parks element in the comprehensive plan because it's a summary or an executive summary of everything that's in the plan. But some of these maps may not transfer that are in the park plan that shows all the neighborhood parks, the coverage and so on and the connectivity. So just FYI, I just wanted you to know that we do have information on that and if we need to bring some of that into the comp plan, we can. Very good. Very cool. All right. Any last things?

All right. Um, also I guess for the record we um we lost Commissioner Wilson. He had other things to attend to. So that was about 7:24. So for the record, we have that change in attendance. Um, okay. So I'll move on to general member comments. Anyone have anything they want to bring up? Any last thoughts? Okay. The one thing that I do have a question about is do you all have good metrics on how many people watch our recordings for the planning commission meeting?

Uh so we can tell on YouTube exactly how many people watch live afterwards. Facebook I'm not exactly sure if those numbers were right. So, and we can tell on YouTube where they're watching from. So, we can find out if they're from Canada, Carver, California, Arizona. So, it it kind of depends on how deep we want to dig into the data afterwards. For sure.

Um it is interesting. Sometimes Tim and I from here will see like a spike, a decrease, a spike, especially when council's talking about a certain subject matter. We'll see that. So, um, if you want that data, that's something that we can pull and provide as needed. Mostly, I just wanted to knowing that we often times say like for the people listening at home or watching later and like wanting to make sure that that's like actually happening and they're more Yeah. more than more than the people that are here in the audience or more than the people who are online now. I would rather not. Then you'll get the room filled. Council member Weer seen that. We do it all the time.

Yeah. And and you know what, Sarah and I can talk to Maggie about maybe some ways that we can get that data for you guys and even add that to the meeting minutes or something just to kind of show what that reaction is. Cool. If we can talk about pickle ball, I bet you that would numbers up. Pickle ball, basketball, um parks. Those are all great topics. Yeah. Or do we have any art that we're going to start doing? All right. You're really trying to fill the room. I'm really trying. Um Yeah. And as always, right, we have two vacancies for the people listening at home if you're interested. We're a riveting group of people to talk to.

And Maggie did push those out. Our communication officer, she pushed out some promotions around that recently and she's been doing it again. So, we're trying as much as possible to get that out there. Very good. All right. Well, we need Eddie's commercial. Yeah. There you go. Your commercial.

All right. So with that, um, our our next meeting is going to be November 12th, 2025. That is going to be a Wednesday, which is different from our normal normal day, but same time at 6:00 p.m. Um, so mark your calendars, show up if you'd like. Please show up. Um, and with that, I'll take a motion to adjourn. Um, one last thing I just Sorry, I know I didn't mean to interrupt your adjournment, but um, on the 28th of this month, which is typically the city council's workshop, we are doing a joint meeting with the county commissioners to talk about a potential ILA related to the comp plan. So, um, I just wanted to make sure you all knew about that. We're moving up the council meeting from to 10:00 a.m. to noon with then a break and then we'll start at 1:00 with the meeting that we're having to talk about this potential ILA the terms and conditions and some of the ideas around um future mapping and the comp plan. So just in case you're curious that's going to be going on. It will be um we will be posting it live on the meeting site as we do typically with YouTube and Facebook, but I just thought people might be interested in that. And that'll be in in this these spaces or somewhere special or where?

It'll actually be here in this council we are hosting. So it'll be here in council chambers. It'll just be a very tight space because we're going to put all of our council and um the county commissioners all down on the floor. So just to be aware of that and it's open to the public. It is open to the public and we will even open up the overflow room next door. Very good. Thank you very much. All right. Make a motion to adjourn the meeting. I second the motion. All right. Moved by Fry, second by Ward. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I.