Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

It is 6:00 and I call the March 3, March 3rd, 2026 regular meeting of the Franklin County Planning Commission to order. Uh, will planning staff call roll and announce whether or not we have a quorum? Mike Corales here. Mike Vincent here. Remy Daroo here. Mark Dutder here. Manny Gutierrez. Stacy Nivetton here. Joel Prant here. Chairman, we have a quorum.

Thank you. I will now lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I will entertain a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting. So move. I move that we approve the agenda for tonight's meeting. Second. It has been moved by Commissioner Vincent and seconded by Commissioner Dutder. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Same sign. Motion passes. I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes from the February 3rd, 2026 meeting. Move to approve minutes from the February Second.

It has been moved by Commissioner Daru and seconded by Commissioner Vincent. All in favor signify by saying I. I. I. All oppose. Same sign. Motion passes. Will staff in attendance please introduce yourselves. Wes McCart director. Say I'm LB planner one. Jim Bellammore, planner two.

Thank you. It is now time for the public hearing portion of our meeting. Good evening and welcome. Here are the ground rules for tonight's hearing. One, in-person public testimony will go first. Each person will be called upon to speak during their allotted in-person public testimony section. Please state your name for the record. Two, emailed comments received during the public hearing will be read into the records by staff after the in-person testimony section of the hearing. Three, all comment should be addressed to the planning commission and should be relevant to the application. Four, each speaker shall have five minutes to provide testimony and speak into the microphone. Five, please avoid repetitive comments. Six, please be respectful of each speaker. Avoid personal attacks or disruptive behavior. Are there any questions regarding the public hearing ground rules? Turning for a moment to our commission members, let us keep in mind that we are prohibited by law from communicating with members of the public on the subject matter of these hearings except in these hearings. We also may not participate in a discussion in which there is an appearance of conflict of interest to the average person. So let us take a minute to consider as to the matters which are before us for hearing today. Whether we had any exparte communications, whether we have any ownership interests in the properties, whether we have any business dealings with proponents or opponents of the matters, or whether we have any business associates or immediate family who may be either benefited or harmed by a decision in these matters. Are there any commission members who have a declaration at this time regarding any of the items on the agenda? I do. I just realized that these guys are my neighbors. Uh but I don't do anything with them. So I am not going to recuse myself.

Uh so let the record show Mike Corales had a declaration. The order of the hearing shall be as follows. One, planning staff shall provide a staff report. The commission may ask questions of staff. Two, the applicant or applicant's representatives presentation. Three, in-person public testimony. Four, email public testimony read into the record by staff. Five, final staff comments. Six, closing the public testimony and planning commission discussion deliberation of the proposed action. Are there any procedural questions before we begin the public hearing? Item number one is a public hearing for ZC 2026-1 sea 2026-2 K&K a LLC reszone. Their proposal is to reszone 49.6 acre parcel from AP20 to RC5. This proposed zone change is consistent with Franklin County Comprehensive Plan designation as a rural settlement. I declare the public hearing for ZC 2026-1 SEPA 2026-2 to be open at 605. May we have staff present the staff report, please? Uh, good evening planning commissioners.

Good evening, planning commissioners.

All right. So, the uh parcel uh in question is currently uh nonaddressed. Um, it's parcel number is 12346080. Current zoning uh as chairman said is uh agricultural production 20 acres. Um it's comp plan uh designation is as a rural community lamard type two lamard standing for a limited area of more intensive rural development. The property size is approximately 49.06 acres. The location on the next slide there will be a map. Uh location of the project is primarily in the southwest corner of section 30 township 11 north range 11 east meridian Franklin County Washington. The property is generally located east of Hope Valley Road, north of Fur Road, south of Summit Loop, and west of US 395. Proposal is to reszone the 49.06 acre parcel from AP202 RC5. This proposone change is consistent with the Franklin County Comprehensive Plan designation as a rural settlement. This is the uh vicinity of the parcel to uh the Lambert of Eltopia. Property owners see more potential in this parcel for residential use rather than keeping it in its current agricultural designation. They have expressed a desire to reszone it to rural community 5 acres RC5 like other nearby parcels. This will put the parcel zone in line with its current comprehensive plan designation as a rural settlement. This reszone request is consistent with the Frank County comprehensive plan. Reszoning this to RC5 is also consistent with the surrounding area as properties uh to the south of this parcel are already zoned RC5. During review of the application, staff noted that a portion of the property is outside of the Lamard. Staff have noted that prior designation of the Lamard did not follow the property lines and only followed these section lines. This

portion of Lamard is part of Skibbid rightway easement and cannot be subdivided separately since it is under the minimum lot size requirement for its zone. And this portion also does not meet the width to depth ratio requirement per subdivision code. Furthermore, since the portion is in the skip rightway easement, it will be difficult to develop on this strip of land. This is the uh strip of land in question. This is the uh current zoning. As you can see, it's AP20 and the parcels to the south are rural community 5 acres already. This is the uh parcel in relation to nearby natural resource lands. Uh it is not currently a natural resource land. These are the nearby lameards to Pasco. It falls in the Eltopia Lamard. On February 11th, uh, 2026, a sea determination of non-significance was issued for this project by the lead agency. Comments were due. On February 26, uh, 2026, the Washington State Department of Ecology filed a combined notice of SEIPA DNS under SEIPA 202600559 on the SEA register. The SEIPA is a non-p project zone change environmental review. The planning and economic development department received no significant comments from agencies regarding the zone change application. Planning and economic development department received no comments from surrounding property owners or residents within the county. Uh here are the recommended findings of fact. The proposal is in accordance with the goals and policies of the comprehensive plan. Frank County comprehensive uh land use designation is rural settlement lambert type 2 under the Eltopia Lambert reszoning. the parcel from AP20 to RC5 is consistent with the underlying comprehensive plan

designation. Number two, the effect of the proposal on the immediate vicinity will not be materially detrimental. The surrounding properties are also within the Eltopia Lamard where rural community uses exist. There is merit and value in the proposal for the community as a whole. Applicant has expressed future plans for subdivision of the lot for rural community purposes. Number four, conditions are required to be imposed in order to mitigate any significant adverse impacts from the proposal. An open space tract is being required for this property once developed in order to serve as a buffer between the uh future subdivision development and the natural resource lands. Number five, a concommatant agreement is not being entered into and between the county and the petitioner and if so, the terms and conditions of such an agreement. And here is the recommended condition of approval. Uh the portion of the parcel that falls outside the Eltopia Lamar shall be designated as an open space tract once developed to act as a buffer between the development and the existing natural resource land. Just a reminder, this is that uh parcel that strip The suggested motion is I move to forward zone change 2026-01/ sea 2026-02 to the board of county commissioners with a positive recommendation based on the five suggested findings of fact and one condition of approval.

Thank you. Does any commissioner have any questions of staff when they draw how did that little parcel get

so of a road description? Is that how they how they originally define the lam? The lammer just went off of the section lines, which um it's tough to see because the Lambert boundary is kind of on top of it, but if you can see up there in the top corner, the little green dotted lines, those are um the township and section lines that um are used on the map to kind of designate for um like surveying purposes. And uh the land was just kind of based off of that rather than the partial boundaries. So a lot of land designations kind of cut through certain parcels. So there's a lot of kind of instances such as I mean normally they're a little bigger rather than a strip of land that's what 30 feet wide but that's pretty common throughout the county unfortunately. So, so commissioners, when I give you the update on the comp plan, we'll be talking about the lameards a little bit and I'll get into depth on what the issue is across the entire county. Any more questions? Okay, there is no applicant, so we won't have that. Um, no inerson public testimony. Is there any email? No email. Chairman,

does staff have any final comments? Uh, no, Mr. Chairman. I will entertain a motion to close the public comment. So moved. Second. Been moved by Commissioner Knifton and seconded by Commissioner Dutder. All in figures. All in favor signify by saying I. I.

All oppose. Same sign. Motion passes. The public testimony portion of the public hearing for ZC 2026-1 sea 2026-2 is closed. Is there any discussion from the planning commission members? None. I will entertain a motion. I' I've farmed that field before and I agree it should be houses. It looks like it.

So I move to forward C206-01- SEPA 2026-02 to the board of county commissioners with a positive recommendation based on the five suggested findings of fact and one condition of approval.

I'll second. It has been moved by Commissioner Knifton and seconded by Commissioner Vincent that we move forward ZC 2026-1 SEPA 2026-2 to the board of county commissioners with a positive recommendation based on the five suggested findings of fact and one condition of approval. Is there any discussion? May we have a roll call vote? Mike Corales. Yes. Mike Vincent, yes. Remy Daroo, yes. Mark Dutder, yes. Stacy Knifton, yes. Joel Prantle, yes.

Chairman, the motion passed unanimously. Thank you. I will entertain a motion to close the public hearing on item number one. Move to close the public hearing on item number one. Second. Been moved by moved by Commissioner Derutder, seconded by Commissioner Vincent. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Same sign. Motion passes. Public hearing is closed.

Change our name because Mike can't get it straight. Did I do it backwards? Oh jeez. Let's pick on Mike David. You weren't here when I forgot his name. Oh, known him for 40 years. Sorry. Go ahead. You were here when I took over for you and I just totally had a

brain block and I was going to ask for a vote and I I forgot how to do it. It's just a minor thing. So, commissioners, I'm going to give you a little update on all the work that we and our consultants have been doing on the comprehensive plan and just give you a general feel for what's what's happening behind the scenes. I can guarantee you there has been a lot of work going on behind the scenes. First of all, I want to show you what our current comprehensive plan looks like. So, this is a plan that was adopted in 2018. And I'm going to scroll down here quite a little ways. Um, so you can see that I've got all kinds of language in here. And I come across more language and I have the countywide planning policies which really are a subsection of the comprehensive plan. It's not really um binding on the plan itself. Um, so a lot of times we separate those out for ease of uh, planning efforts. But we get into land use element. Here's a perfect example. Again, we talk about population, different cities, we have maps. This is all great information, but on a day-to-day basis, we don't ever use that. if there's an issue, we we we go back to it, but in most cases, we don't ever really get into it. So, then we get down and you can see I'm still scrolling. I'm still scrolling. I'm still scrolling. And then I get into the policies for the

urban growth. And when I get into the policies, um, one of the things you'll see in here is I end up with golds and then a whole bunch of policies underneath of it. So here's gold. So I got gold two, I got policy two, and I come down here and I've got goals and policies all mixed together throughout the plan. And that's the current condition that our comprehensive plan is in. So, I'm going to close this and I'm going to show you where we're going here. Now, I use Stevens County, not because that's the county I'm from, but because it's an example that I'm used to. But there's kind of two ways to do a comprehensive plan. One is to mix the policies with all the background into one plan. The other is to separate it. And um this is an example of one that's separated. And you'll notice, you know, nice and clean here. But when I get into the actual comprehensive plan, I got a preamble. I got a vision. I got a short introduction which is talking about the update. And then I get to the meat and potatoes. I got general planning policies. I got goals. I got a handful full of goals. And then I've got each of the policies that pertain to that section. So in this particular case, we got general policies. We go to economic development element. We go to the land use element, which is fairly large and a little bit more broke up. But these are the policies and the goals that we use every day

daytoday and it's all in one volume. So you can see how it's laid out. It's numbered. So let's talk about the economic development section for instance. So for us to use our um public uh facilities money or 009 money, you have a form you have to fill out. and says, "Well, how's it is it in your economic development plan or how is it supported by the comprehensive plan policies?" This allows me to pick the policies that support whatever proposal we've got. Put the number in there and be done with it. Um, so it's just a lot easier for us to use. It's a lot easier to read and you're not mixing the language with the policies. So when you go through and see what policies we have, it's easy to follow each section and follow to see where the policies fall with each other. The um language piece is still kept. I'll open this one. This is the volume two and this will be similar. And as you can see, um, well, actually, AHL did have a hand in in putting these, uh, particular plans together, but again, this is literally where your maps sit. And usually they're a little different, but in essence, what I have is in each section, I have all of the supporting documentation that goes with that section. So, by splitting it up into two different volumes, again, it's just more easy. It's a lot easier for planning staff to use day-to-day. It's going to be a lot easier for you to use. And what I'm really doing by drawing this to your attention is if you can imagine taking this, and it'll be more apparent as we get a little further along. If I take this and

I make these two things and I give you a redline version, it's going to be about this much paper. We have tracked all that for the record. However, I'm going to give you guys a clean version of the document. If you're wondering how to crosswalk something, I'm happy to supply the other document, the crosswalks, uh, to you, but it'll make it much easier for you guys to go through. you're reading clean documents, you're making comments on clean policies, uh, as we move through. So, um, and I have already shown this to the commissioners, uh, and they were, uh, supportive of that particular piece. So, now I'm going to open the PowerPoint that didn't work very good when I was here last time. Come on. There we go. So, I'm just going to walk through this. Um, I can show the other view, but I think I'll just skip here so you can actually see my notes. So, um, what I did is we went through this section here and this is the economic development section. This is the first one we did. And Alex, our new long range planner. And again, I apologize for these slides. They worked perfect on my computer when I brought him here. Uh, they show up differently. But, um, the goal on the left is what's currently in a plan. So he went through, pulled out all the goals and policies and then turned around and made this matrix. And what you can see here is that we cut

all the policies that were here or all the golds. There were 13 goals and I got some more. So these there's a total of 13 goals. You'll notice on the right hand column what we did is we changed a lot of these policies. They weren't goals. Your goals are overarching thoughts of what this section's supposed to be, right? Um a lot of these goals were policies and then we came down in these and you'll see that we ended up with two goals. That's it out of 13 that describe this entire section. Then as we went through, like I said, some of these we changed the policies. So we took some of these goals and we turned them into policies and we went through here on each of those. So as you can imagine, if I document all of this when we're done, that's going to be the red line version. All this will go in the record, but you're going to get these clean policies that are over here, and each one in the economic session will be numbered. So, you'll have a couple of bullet points for the goals, and then you'll end up with uh a handful of policies. And we've done this for each and every section. So, as you can see, we've really tried to streamline the policies, the way they had it before, um, it was almost a mind-numbing exercise as we're going through this. And it's like you'd have a goal and you end up with a policy, five or six policies, and it was the same policy

over and over and over. And some of it was even regulations. You don't want regulations in your comp plan. goals and policies. It's a policy document. It's not meant to be the regulatory document. So, we've we've wiped out all the regulation that's in the current plan as well as updating. So, um let's see. I'm going to go back up here. So, couple other things is that we've done is uh we're gonna we're contemplating adding a preamble. Um we're also adding some general policies which are more overarching. The current comp plan does have some general policies, but they're not very general in nature. So, there going to be some changes there. Um we're going to add a park and recreation element. We have policies throughout the entire document right now, but they're scattered all over. We don't have a park and rec uh element and the idea of the park and recreation is not to function. We don't want to start a park and rec department in the county. But right now, it's pretty hard to support uh parks. Matter of fact, I got a phone call the other day from uh a gentleman in uh Basin City who wants they've got a park there. Want to enhance some of the elements in the park. We have a park in rec district or an element in here. It's a little easier to support those parks. Levy Park, the transition, our recreation areas. How do we help support those recreation? How do we work with the feds? How do we work with the state? Those are going to be some policies that we're adding to that element in here. The other that we're adding is we're adding we're required to add a climate policy uh climate element

to the plan. Uh that's required by law. There's a couple different ways we can do that. We can take the goals and policies and scatter them throughout. We could have its own element that has all of the climate pieces in there. But we have things like vehicle miles uh reduced vehicle miles traveled that we're required to come up with. Well, that's transportation. So, there's a handful of climate policies you're going to see scattered throughout where they really fit with the element that they're in. And then we'll have the climate element in addition to that. Again, ease of use, ease of reading, making sure that we're covering all the bases is the target there. Um, and then one other big point here in the PowerPoint that I want to touch on is title 14 is our um, that's our administrative code. So, some of the things we've got title 14. I'm reviewing it right now. Um, we can adopt Title 14 without adopting all of the up other updates. it can be done separately. I'm a little hesitant to do that because I don't want to do it twice. So, uh I I need to get far enough along before we adopt this part without necessarily getting us to into a quagmire of back and forth. We we get 16, 17, and 18 updated and then we turn around and have to come back and do 14 again. I I don't want to do that twice. But some of the major changes we're looking at making in title 14 is moving to a hearing examiner. I know I've mentioned that before. Um the scope of the planning commission is going to change. So all of these hearings that you're having, a lot of this is going to be done by the planning uh by the hearing examiner.

Hearing examiner takes place a lot of the stuff the commissioners are doing. So, we hold one hearing and then he makes the decision or it goes to the commissioners and they make the decision. Uh, in certain circumstances, but by and large staff's making decisions or based on the code that we have and if it's going to be appealed, it'll go to the hearing examiner. Again, in some limited basis, it'll go to the board of county commissioners, but then it goes to superior court from there. Uh, a lot of what the planning commission's role is going to change to in that case is you're you're going to be making suggestions that are legislative in nature. So, as we do the shoreline master plan update, as we do the comp plan updates in the future, as we do updates on the yearly docketing process, those are things you're going to hear. Um, again, the timing of do adoption I'm not quite sure on. Uh, I want to make sure that our use tables are consistent with what's here. Our current use tables that we have uh in in the code that we currently are using are woefully inadequate. They don't describe most of what we're doing. As you can tell, I mean, I'm bringing you one conditional use after another. Um, for whatever rhyme or reason in history, uh, Franklin County, uh, someone decided that everything should be a conditional use. Very few things are permitted. Uh, we're planning on taking another take at this. I I believe most things should be permitted outright. Um, if we need administrative review to put conditions on, we can. If we need a conditional use permit, we can. in those circumstances where it's warranted. So, when we get to that section, that'll be something that, you know, we're going to be looking for public input as well as the planning

commission and the commissioner's input on uh when we get into those details. But once we get to the actual code and recommendations, most of this stuff, and as you can tell by the the the hearing we had tonight, I mean, we're following the code. We've already processed it to code. Nobody's here to hear it. It's not controversial. These are the types of things that if we lay it out in the code properly, why aren't we doing it administrative? Um, we don't need to be wasting your time and I don't mean to send make it lightly like like we are wasting your time, but to the point we can streamline these processes. Um, you'll remember a while back we had uh, well, let's use the detached uh, accessory dwelling unit we had last month. It's like, okay, these are allowed. Why is a conditional use permit? The law is going to change in this session. I I can guarantee it. And detached accessory dwelling units should be an outright permitted use. But right now, it takes almost three months from the beginning to the end to get that done. And if if your parents are sick and you need to build a little house or you have a little place you can put them in or you're just going to put an FAS out there, mobile home in for them, why should it take three months for you to even get started? I mean, that that's ridiculous. So again, we're trying to look for um ways to help streamline and make it easier on the public. And something I'll share with with you um with you planning commissioners is, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of comments throughout time that says, well, this is a takings. Uh I tend to be pretty uh private property oriented. I will tell you getting to a takings is a

monumental task. It it takes a lot to get to a takings, but if you read the memorandum of uh of protecting of property rights that the AG writes on a and updates regularly, uh most of the process is about substantive due process. So, I kind of drilled this in my staff's head. Uh commissioners like the idea. I think you guys will like the idea, but substantive due process is broke down into this. In order to regulate, I must identify the harm I'm trying to prevent. The harm has to be real, not perceived. Doesn't have to have happened, but it has to be real. And the regulation has to be proportional. So, as we're going through this planning effort, that is the mantra that we are trying to keep in mind as we're doing this. For far too long, Franklin County is overregulated in a lot of areas. Granted, there's some areas we've probably underregulated, but let's try and get it a little closer to what what we need to be. Uh I use the example of we have a right to farm ordinance and we're an agricultural community, yet in certain zones I'm only allowed like two cows, three cows because of my acorage. Well, you know, if you want to have five cows and you want to buy the hay to feed those five cows because you don't have a lot of acorage and it's not negatively impacting your neighbors, why is the county dictating how many cows you can have to do a code enforcement to go out and tell somebody they got one too many cows? Um, and this is a real life example that I've had in the time I've been here, so I'm not making this stuff up. This is current code that we need to consider changing. So, uh, with that, I got one more thing

real quick. I'll show you, um, just to kind of get you. This is Benton County, but I have a little contract with, uh, and I'll try and move this down so you can see it. So, these are maps. There's four different maps that they or three different maps that they use as base maps. In our critical areas ordinance, one of the things we're supposed to protect is priority habitat. Now, we're actually supposed to protect that habitat for the species that's living in that habitat. And one of the sections that's huge in this area is shrubstep. Um my comp my critical areas ordinance that we function under right now says if I have a shrubstep I can ask for a critical areas analysis by a professional by a licensed engineer. These are extremely expensive. And then I have to come up as the administrator with what's the mitigation sequence of losing that shrub step. And Fish and Wildlife has been all over the board with their recommendations. And my fear is that I'm making I'm making decisions that appear to be arbitrary and capriccious. So what they do is they start out with this map which is just kind of the PHS. This is the map priority habitat and species map that we currently have available to us. And then they take and they add the wizardry map which is really about again the critters that live in the shrub step. This case uh sage grass and they have that map. They have a biodiversity which gives me other critters that live in the in the different shrubstep habitat. And the final product and I'll show you

the actual map and I'll scroll back up. So this is the actual map and obviously this is a blown out Benton County portion. Um Benton County, Yakima County, Grant County, Franklin County, we're all looking to do the same exact thing. We're trying to get ahead of Fish and Wildlife in figuring out what the mitigation sequencing should be for shrubstep. Their definition of shrubep is ancient. Doesn't really fit into what they tell us. We send out a sea. We get all kinds of different comments. Jee and I went and did a site visit on the reman that the port of uh subdivision that you guys did a few months ago. There's a little bit of shrub step on one corner. They said, "Do an owl survey if you're going to do anything to if you're going to take that shrub step out between March, I think it was." No, it was uh like May to June, you need to do an owl survey. Never said anything about mitigating any of the shrubstep that's there. It was a mediocre shrubep habitat. Did a project right now. We're just doing a building project that had some shrubep on it. We needed to look at the mitigation on that 160 acres. There was one acre of good shrubstep and they said that needs to be mitigated at a two 2:1 ratio. Nothing about the rest of the lot. And then I get other comments. I've got this 5 acre piece and they want me and it's like where is there's no shrub. It's you can't even see the bunch grass. It's hard to call it shrubstep and they're saying we want two to one mitigation on that. This effort is to get away from that. So what it'll produce is a map with this different uh shade. So if you start in

the lower leftand corner very very low uh quality shrub step very low mitigation requirement. When you get to the far right hand corner, upper right hand corner, that's like prime shrubstep habitat. That's what we should be looking to mitigate at a at a decent level. So, it's similar to what we mitigate for for wetlands. You know, category one wetland, prime wetland, you have certain mitigation measures.

So, define shrubs to what shrubs to sage brush? uh uh sage. If you look at what the guidance is that Fish and Wildlife has in order to be classified shrubstep, it is considered you have to have sage and you have to have bunch grass. However, they'll sit there and tell you right on the face that rabbit brush, some of the other woody brushes that are out there are still shrubstep and still support the same characters. This hence the reason for wanting to to spend the time and effort to do this mapping exercise and develop this matrix.

So two to one mitigation plan would be to plant twice as much shrub step. So, commissioner, right now their recommendation is that I buy two acres for every acre that I have out there. Well, to me, that's kind of a land grab that I'm setting aside all this land um for no use in the future. Not that the critters are not important, but where's the balance? So the mitigation sequence that will be coming off of this map exercise will be yes can in certain circumstances can you buy into a mitigation bank you know whatever the ratio is 1.5 or 1.4 to one you're buying land to set aside that maybe is already set aside. Uh the other is really want to put an emphasis on improving the shrubstep habitat that's out there. And the example I use is what good does it do to me to have a thousand acres of really poor shrubstep habitat. Um I don't really have any critters. I don't have any owls. I don't have any Fergus hawks. I don't have any of the critters that are using that that shrubstep. If I had 10 acres of really good shrub step, I've probably got more critters than you want to count out there. And that's the idea of the mitigation. Let's spend our dollars and effort to mitigate where it's going to do us good instead of setting land aside that has no purpose and the shrubstep's never going to actually support the critters that are considered priority species. If if that land had been designated egg cultivated land that has gone into CRP for 20 plus years, would could they

still come back and say, "Okay, yeah, clearly there's shrubs here. There's bunch grass, but it was once farmed. Does it still fall into this possible mitigation issue?" So according to the department right now, the recommendations that we're getting on some of that type of land is yes, it needs to be mitigated for and then it's my job to take that comment in as the administrator under the code, take that information in and make a decision. And if it's been prior farmed, my decision's been I'm not mitigating for it. Yeah.

Because it's already been cultivated. CRP is a set aside program. it's meant to come back in at some point. Thinking in terms of that solar project that we did, could they could they come back and say, "Okay, that's great that you approved that, but there's drugs everywhere potentially."

Yeah. I you know, yes. I mean, it's CRP. Um, you know, it's going to be in a solar project for 30, 40 years. If it comes out, goes back into farming. do we have to mitigate for shrub step that came in there? Well, that's part of doing this exercise because we'll be able to have a map that shows us that really wasn't priority habitat, right? So, I don't need to mitigate for it. Uh it's just like a wetland, man-made wetlands. I don't have to mitigate for a man-made wetland. So, think of it that way. Um so, I I think this is going to be extremely useful tool in the future. we can target where we want the shrub step. Um, you know, the golf course that you guys uh approved. Um, you know, they've got a little bit of shrub step out there. Uh, it's not what I call super high quality. I asked for a report on that. Uh, as soon as I get the report, I need to make a decision. But they have land that they they are not using. and you know their their preference is to take some of that land they're not using and develop better habitat down in that land they're not using. To me, that's where mitigation really is effective, right? You're you're recognizing that you're making it better. Uh so those are the types of things uh again that this mapping effort uh I have grant funds to cover this I I just think it's going to give the county a tool and we're developing this as multiple counties same using basically the same tool. So the hope is we're working this together and we can be consistent across county lines. So if you do a project in Benton County, you do a project in Grant County, you do a project in Franklin County, it's all a similar uh mitigation pieces. So for those folks that are putting in

industries or bringing in industries, we're not losing industries or developments because for some reason the guy sitting in my my chair has decided or gal has decided that we need a higher mitigation ratio that can't be supported. or we get a different comment from Fish and Wildlife on each project that's not supported by the science. That's why we're doing this. So, with that, if you have any questions, I'm happy to take them, but um I hope to have something in your hands to start reviewing here uh within the next couple of months. Uh again, I'm going to be feeding you uh clean versions so that you don't have to go through page after page of redline stuff that says move to a different section. Um be looking for your input. Very anxious to get that. Um little disappointed that we're not a little further ahead than we we are now, but um there's been a lot of work, a lot of changes behind the scene. Uh so with that I'll entertain any questions or I'll say I'm done.

I guess my question is as we're going through that and we as a body decide that we need to prioritize something that we haven't been or allowing maybe different industry than a is that become a goal that becomes a policy. How how do you deal with those visions? So, so if it's more of a visionary thing, I'd say it's a goal and we can add it as a goal. If it's more of a policy direction towards regulation, we'd put it as a policy. Um, I think you're going to find that um we've tried to be extremely broad with our goals and our policies are a little more specific but a lot general in nature. Um, the other thing we've done is we've got a lot of entities. I use this example for the commissioners. It says, you know, uh, incubators from the economic development section. It said, you know, we'll support the port of Pasco having business incubators. Well, I've got Tridac, I've got the BF COG, I've got private folks that could have business incubators. The county could start their own. We don't know. There's other entities. Why are we specifying in the policy that it should be the port? So, we've taken it out and just say simply, you know, the county supports business incubation and business incubators. That's the policy that gives us the framework to make the regulations that allow those business incubators to be started out there so we can bring in more businesses and have more jobs and hopefully higher paying jobs. uh for folks. So, yeah, that's the thing we're going to be looking for when we give you the document. Is there something we missed?

Uh is there something you guys want to emphasize differently than what we came up in the draft? Um and mainly what we've done is, you know, some of the stuff we knew that it it was just flat missed. um like in the utility section we don't deal with we don't have anything we don't have no policies on solar we have no policies on wind we have no policies on data centers we have no policy on battery storage and we started to think 20 years in the future we don't know what kind of energy is going to come in so we wrote a policy that allows us the flexibility for us to consider how do we appropriately site these facilities that would come up in the future that we really don't even know what they are yet without having to rewrite the comprehensive plan or or or amend it. You know, we can amend it but it's yearly. Um, a lot of folks if let's say hydrogen was all of a sudden to make a great big huge bone in in the state, you really want us to wait an entire year to figure out what the policy would be and then months and months and months later come up with a regulation when we got a facility that's looking maybe to site here in the county. we should be planning for that in the future without necessarily having to uh have each little minutia in in our planning documents. So, building some flexibility in the plan. Any other questions? Okay. Well, I look forward to bringing you some documents to start reading. Thank you.

Any other comments? Planning Commission is adjourned at 650.