Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting to order for 01/15/2026. My name is Carl Johnson. I'm the chairman of the Clark County I can't. Planning Hello Cindy. What's up?

Now I heard you.

All right Cindy, I'll start again just for fun, okay? I'd like to call this meeting to order for Thursday, 01/15/2026. My name is Carl Johnson. I'm the chairman of the Clark County Planning Commission. The role of the Planning Commission is to review and analyze comprehensive plan amendments, zoning changes, and other land use related issues.

We follow a public process including holding hearings during which the public has the opportunity to provide additional perspectives and information. In legislative matters, the role of the Planning Commission is advisory. The County Council will hold separate hearings, consider our recommendations, and then they will make a final determination. The Planning Commission will conduct a public hearing tonight and take testimony. Public comments received tonight before tonight's hearing have been sent to the PC members and entered into the public record.

County staff will first present and then the Planning Commission can ask questions. Next we invite the applicant to speak. If there is one then the members of the public who wish to provide testimony. When we get to the public comment portion of our agenda we will provide more information on how to participate both virtually and in person. However, if you're a person tonight and wish to provide comment on a hearing agenda item, please sign up via the sign in sheet in the back of the room.

During public testimony, you will have three minutes to speak. And remarks should be directed to the Planning Commission only. Please do not repeat testimony that has already been provided. At the conclusion of public testimony, staff and the applicant may respond to comments, and the public portion of the hearing will then be closed. Planning Commission will then deliberate and make a recommendation to the county council.

For both virtual and in person members of the planning commission and staff, please ensure that your microphones are muted unless you are speaking. Planning commission members, when you make a motion or a second, please state your name for the court reporter. Conflicts eventist. Tonight, do any members of the Planning Commission have any conflicts related to tonight's hearing items?

This is Commissioner Heroun. I don't believe it's a conflict of interest, but just for transparency, one of the areas North Of 209th Street, I have a family member that has an interest in the property that is their home, and it could be subject to one of the rezone actions or not. And, yeah, just wanna put that on the record so there's no appearance. There's no financial or anything from my standpoint.

Counselor?

This is the first I've heard of this, so I'm not sure I have enough in the way of facts to determine whether there is a conflict of interest.

It's it's a Is is your mic on? I'm sorry. Just for Cindy.

Is it I'm sorry?

Is your mic on? Yeah. Okay. Alright. Is that better? Yeah. That's better.

Okay. We'll try it this way. So I'm not sure I I know enough about it to tell whether there's a conflict of interest, though I do appreciate the disclosure. How distant is the family member and what will the family member potentially derive from it would be what I am curious about.

So it's my father-in-law, and it's

their property they lived on for fifty some years. And it's North Of 209th Street, and it's in in the areas that we're talking about. And so as far as the zone or the rezone, but as far as financial interests or anything, have I have zero.

So when you say it's in the areas, you mean it is property that is subject to a site specific request?

No. No. No. It's it's the area along 10th Avenue that's North Of 209th that was in the area of for the last year or so, I think, on map that staff had determined. And then staff is now recommending that not be in that area for industrial rezone by the Washington State property up there or the washed off property that's up there.

Okay. That sounds like full disclosure to me. Yep. So there we are. Okay. Thank you. And I I don't want to say whether mister Haroun should recuse himself from voting on that particular matter, but because I I don't really have a strong opinion on it, do you think you can be fair?

Yeah. Absolutely. There's no my my advocacy wouldn't change either direction.

Okay.

Yeah, but I just wouldn't just for just for the nature of this board, for our hearing, for transparency, wanted to make sure of that.

Thank you. Yeah.

And the Planning Commission, if you have a different Commissioners,

if

you have a conclusion that's different from mine, this would be the time to say something about it. Otherwise, I think we should accept Mr. Haroun's conclusion.

Yeah, this is Chairman Johnson. I I think we would all have that issue if we have people living within it as long as, like Christine said, it's not site specific. So I don't have a problem. I don't know if anybody else would consider that. So with that said, any questions, Ron?

No, I was just going to voice the opinion. This is Ron Barka that I'm fine with Jack's omission or not omission but declaration. Admission. Sorry.

Okay. We will move on then. Can we get a roll call? Jeff?

Ryan Halpert? Mark Bergvold? Here. Kyle Fadness? Here. Ron Barka? Here. Jack Haroun? Here. Alicia LaDuke Montgomery?

Here. Carl Johnson?

Here. Can I get approval for 01/15/2026? A motion for that, please.

This is commissioner Fadness. I make a motion to approve the agenda for January 1526.

This is the commissioner Bergvold, and I would second that.

Okay. With that said, can we get a roll call, please?

Mark Bergvold? Aye. Kyle Fettness? Aye. Ron Barker. Aye. Jack Haroun. Aye. Alicia Waduke Montgomery.

Aye.

Carl Johnson. Aye. Six zero.

So the motion passes. Okay. So now we're gonna we have not to the everybody out in front of me, we have not closed the hearing technically from last week if you were here. We ran into a 10, basically a hard stop, and so we said let's continue the testimony. So there is a couple things.

Will, based on what's been asked of me of staff, is to check the list to see who's here, who signed up last time. If you are new to the list, I have another list here that is, I'll just go through those people. If you testified last week, please don't, we're not gonna have you testify. But we would appreciate if you wouldn't. So we're on a three minute hard block.

It takes a lot to get through. You don't have to testify, you can testify either way. That's the first thing I need to talk about. The second thing, back to the commission, Deeb is asked to take a ten minute block to testify. We're not required to do that, but I want to bring it back and ask the commission what they feel about that. We had gone through everybody last week, all the cities and the ag people, but I'm not sure how we want to approach the deed. They want ten minutes. They I'm assuming it's they and not an individual saying that they want to speak on their own personal behalf. Hope that makes sense. So does anybody have any feelings about that?

This is Commissioner Haroun. I believe we should have DEEP speak. Like, they're volunteer advisory board for the county, and they bring a lot of technical expertise, and I would really like to hear their opinion.

Ron Barka, I have no objection.

Okay, it doesn't seem like we have any objections. So with that said, before we start tonight, we'll have Jeff do his thing here to let everybody know how they run the online stuff. We'll do ten minutes deep, and then we'll get into individual testimony from the community. So with that said, Jeff.

Please note, to be a party of record, you must submit written testimony before, during, or prior to the close of tonight's hearing or provide oral testimony at the public hearing or request in writing to be a party of record. If written comments were received prior to 01/15/2026, they were submitted to the PC members and posted on the Planning Commission website. Tonight's hearing is being transcribed by a court reporter, so please spell your first and last name and speak slowly. Public comment time is limited to three minutes. Carl, are we going to start with WebEx callers?

Yeah, let's do WebEx callers. Let's do that first.

Okay. We will now begin with those participants that have joined remotely via computer or telephone. Please raise your virtual hand or press 3 on your phone to let us know you would like to provide comments. Caller, you've been sent a request to unmute. Please go ahead and do so. Spell your name for the court reporter and go ahead with your comment.

Excuse me. God evening. My name is Kimberly Goheen Elbon, k I m b e r l e e. Goheen, g o h e e n, Elbon, e l b o n. Living here in

Clark County all my life. Did you testify last time? Did you testify last time?

I did, but you had a second where we were able to speak about, other issues also. If I remember right, I was waiting on the phone and

So this is not this is not, reserved for, the main the, what we're talking about tonight?

Some of

it will be individual has already testified before as an individual, I think you just told people that it is inappropriate for them to testify again.

Yeah, ma'am. We're gonna have to move on. What? Just because we have a lot of people here. Do we have Okay.

Well, I know that there were people that got to speak twice.

No. Nobody got to speak twice here. No. Nobody did. That's what we're trying to stop this time. So you may also send an email. Yeah. So alright. Can we go to the next one, please, Jeff?

Caller, you've been sent a request on mute. Please go ahead and do so. Spell your name for the court reporter and go ahead with your comment.

Good evening. My name is Dennis Zimmermly, d e n n I s v I m m e r l y. I'm a fourth generation Richfield resident. My family has a long history in Richfield, and we began farming spuds there in 1881. We know firsthand that the properties proposed on the Richfield alternative two are not economically productive.

We have owned and farmed thousands of acres in Richfield and throughout the county. Potato and dairy farming no longer exist in Richfield. Those operations have all relocated east of the mountain. In addition, the high school eliminated its FFA program more than twelve years ago. I wanna urge the county to take a closer look at Richfield alternative two.

The proposed properties have carried an urban reserve overlay since 1994, are not subject or not suitable for productive farming, are surrounded by city limits and urbanization on the free side. And to the north, there is significant urbanization at the La Centeraca. Even the ag study acknowledges the need for a closer look. In its presentation, two key questions were asked. Does this reflect your knowledge of on the ground conditions?

And are there any gaps you can identify? Those questions matter because not all relevant criteria were applied. A brief look at the county's GIF layering and aerials will show using the full criteria, these properties are not prime farmland. Significant infrastructure investment and decades of coordinated planning have already been directed to these expansion areas known as the Discovery Corridor, an area long planned for job creation and affordable housing. The draft EIS date, in some cases, expansion will be the logical response to projected urban growth.

It also notes that alternative two would result in a smaller negative contribution to climate change than the other alternatives. The draft EIF further concludes that alternate two and three support meeting or exceeding housing growth targets across the county and its cities. The DEIF also notes that alternative two transfers only point 6% of the county's rural land into urban growth areas. While not prohibited, it is a goal of the GMA to prevent unnecessary conversion of ag land to urban uses. For those reasons, we urge the county to select alternative two.

It's the most logical and environmentally responsible approach to accommodating growth over the next twenty years. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments. Do we have anybody else, Jeff?

Yes. Yes. We do. Mary Goody, you've been sent a request on mute. Please go ahead and do so. Spell your name for the court reporter, and go ahead with your comment.

Chair and council members, are you able to hear me?

Yes, we are.

All right. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Mary Goody, m a r y g o o d y, and I'm a resident of Clark County and living in the battleground area. I'm here to address what the 2025 Clark County agricultural lands study tells us as you move forward with the comprehensive plan update. This study was conducted by independent consultants selected through a formal RFP process and commissioned by the unanimous direction of this county council.

It represents a $200,000 investment of taxpayer dollars and was designed to provide objective defensible guidance grounded in state law. The study reached two clear conclusions. First, it found that all currently designated agricultural resource lands in Clark County meet the legal criteria for long term commercial agricultural significance under WAC three six five one nine zero zero five zero. In fact, over 31,000 acres are classified as prime farmland or farmland of statewide importance. Any designation of these lands for other uses would encourage sprawl and make Clark County out of compliance with the Growth Management Act.

Second, the study found that additional rural lands in Clark County also meet the legal criteria for agricultural designation, but are not currently so designated. 98% of this additional acreage is classified as prime farmland. It's important to address a growing misconception. This study does not invite site specific pick and choose requests that override its findings. The agricultural land study provides a consistent data driven framework aligned with state law.

The study clearly confirms two things. Number one, all existing agricultural designations should be maintained. Number two, additional qualifying lands should be designated as required by state law. I urge the council to respect the purpose, cost and conclusions of this study and to carry them forward into the comprehensive plan update. The GMA requires the county to have enough land in agriculture to support a viable agricultural economy.

The county has already lost a significant amount of resource land to development. We cannot lose more and support agriculture as is required by law. Thank you for your time and your commitment to evidence based decision making.

Thank you for your comments, Jeff.

Linda McHeal, you've been sent a request to unmute. Please go ahead and do so. Spell your name for the court reporter and go ahead with your comment. Linda, you've been sent a request to unmute. You can go ahead with your comment.

Okay. We'll go ahead go on to the next person. Justin Berger, you've been sent a request to unmute. Please go ahead and do so. Spell your name for the court reporter and go ahead with your comment.

Good evening. My name is Justin Berger. That's j u s t I n b u r g e r. I'm a farmer and rural property owner outside of Yukol in unincorporated Clark County. While I serve, as the vice chair of the agricultural advisory commission, I'm speaking tonight in my personal capacity.

I was here last week and heard repeated claims that some of this land may be designated agricultural, but really isn't suitable for farming or that no one would wanna farm near urban areas. As a working farmer in Clark County, I need to respectfully push back on that. Years ago, when I was trying to buy land to farm, much of the land closer to town was already being held out of agricultural use because owners were speculating on future rezoning. We saw listings openly advertising potential redesignation and subdivision. Land that could have gone to farmers was left fallow to support the claim that it wasn't viable.

That isn't about quality soil. That's about speculation. Today, through modern and regenerative farming practices, my family, farms land that many would call marginal. We produce a wide variety of vegetables and feed hundreds of local residents. If land near urban areas were actually available at agricultural prices, many farmers in this county would be eager to farm it.

Being close to markets and customers is exactly what keeps farms viable. I also wanna address the discussion of transfer of development rights. TDRs can be use a useful tool, but they need to be done carefully and countywide. A rushed city specific TDR program doesn't give this commission or the agricultural advisory commission time to be involved in developing best practices based on what has worked, what hasn't, and in other counties and states that have implemented TDR programs. The growth management act exists for a reason.

Once farmland is converted, it is gone forever. Clark County has already lost 38% of its farmland between 2007 and 2022. At the same time, the county's own analysis shows that projected growth can be accommodated within the existing group growth areas. This decision is not abstract for people like me. It determines whether the next generation can farm here, whether Clark County remains a place that actually produces food.

The most responsible and legally defensible choice before you is alternative one. It protects existing agricultural land, aligns with the agricultural study, and follows the intent of the Growth Management Act. I urge you to stand by your data, protect agricultural lands of long term commercial significance, and select alternative one. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments. Next.

Linda Conaway, you've been sent a request to unmute. Please go ahead and do so. Spell your name for the court reporter, go ahead with your comment. Linda Conaway, you've been sent a request to unmute. Please go ahead with your comment.

Okay. We'll go on to the next person. Caller, you've been sent a request to unmute. Please go ahead and do so. Spell your name for the court reporter, go ahead with your comment.

Caller, you've been sent a request to unmute. Please spell your name for the court reporter and go ahead with your comment. It appears there's nobody else online.

Okay. Okay, so what I'd like to do first is have a representative from DEEP step forward to the mic. They've asked for ten minutes.

You for accommodating the request. My name is Eric Golimo, e r I c g o l e m o. And I'm providing the following comments on the Clark County comprehensive plan and agricultural study from Deeb, which is the development and engineering advisory board. We're the council's advisory board for items related to development and engineering, similar to the Ag Commission for Agricultural Study. First, want to say this is an extremely important decision that will shape our community for years to come.

Of the proposed alternatives, we support alternative three or really a blend of two and three, and I'll talk about that later. That said, all the alternatives fall short of our future growth and some targeted expansion of the urban growth boundaries necessary to adequately address housing shortage and unaffordability crisis. Let's take a quick minute to consider what this county looked like twenty years ago, how far and how far we have come. That growth came from a variety of sources. Areas like Vancouver have seen redevelopment and revitalization along the waterfront, downtown core, and strategic corridors.

Growth outside of that core in Clark County has provided homes to thousands of Clark County residents, providing stability, improvements to their quality of life. New homes have been built in our smaller cities, providing thousands of families with the dream of homeownership and a shot at the American dream. I wanna highlight Ridgefield, one of the fastest growing cities in Washington. What an amazing and vibrant community it has become. They did it through good planning and a public and public private partnerships.

New business and this is not just Ridgefield, but new businesses have moved into the area to support that growth and provide jobs to fuel our local economy. I'm pretty proud to call Clark County my home. People have moved here for a reason. We have a unique character, and we need to focus on maintaining that character. Now let's fast forward twenty years in the future. Do we think we can really we'll really be able to accommodate our growth with no significant expansion of the urban growth area? Almost zero new land is being allocated for new owner occupied single family homes. Growth is not easy. It's more difficult if we fan to fail to plan, but it'll happen regardless. Growth fuels our community and provides our homes and workplaces.

We need to adequately plan and make reasonable assumptions. We need a fundamental change in vision and philosophy to protect the quality of life and character in our community while also planning for future growth. Now now that the tone is set and I have your attention, let's get into some technical pieces. Washington State faces a severe housing affordability crisis. Department of Commerce projects a need for more than 1,100,000 more homes to be built in the next twenty years.

Currently, approximately 80% of Washington households cannot afford the median priced home. The Columbian just reported that half of Southwest Washington residents cannot even afford a housing at all. We're facing a significant undersupply of housing and lack of buildable land. GMA artificially constrains that supply. The the recommended plan grossly underestimates what will convert and redevelop.

We'll be in a structural deficit immediately after adoption, and we'll not get close to our density goals. The presented alternative does a good job of complying with the state requirements of house bill twelve twenty. That bill requires governments to plan and accommodate housing needs across all income levels. But that compliance alone is not practical without considering all tools and options. The recommended approach significantly impacts the character of our community.

County staff and several cities representatives have stated that the plan is not practical without significant subsidies. Approximately 50% of the housing plan is targeted to those below 80% of AMI, gross median income, and is not economically feasible to construct. Staff has stated that they only need to plan for growth, not ensure it's practical or possible to achieve. So instead of actually planning for growth, this becomes merely an accounting exercise. This is too big of a decision with significant consequences to not adequately plan.

If the planned housing is not practical achieved, the land will not convert, and it'll become shadow inventory in the model. This will contribute to an even bigger shortage of housing, further driving up the cost of the existing stock, doing the exact opposite of what's intended. It should be noted that none of the alternatives being considered recommend any significant expansion of the urban growth boundary to accommodate housing for our growing population. Instead, they rely on increasing the density and the current boundary. In addition, many of the assumed densities are not practical or obtainable.

I recently saw a county document that assumed a 100 dwelling units per acre along a 100 Highway 99 in the VBLM. Those are mid rise apartments with parking garage. We haven't historically seen those densities like that outside the urban core. A recent study done by Johnson Eric,

can you slow down, please?

Yes. I will. I recently saw a county document okay. We we have not a recent study that was done by Johnson Economics documented actual achieved density over the last five years in Clark County. It shows that the average density achieved across identified developments was less than 12 units per acre.

The average assumed density in the VBLM was 17.6 acres. It's off by 60 it's only 68% of what was planned. So we're achieving significantly less than what's planned in the VBLM, giving us a shortage. In addition in addition, target densities are increasing across the board with this plan, assuming most low density zones at about 14 units per acre and multifamily about 22 to 40 plus units per acre. They're to the point where they're either not going to be built or not going to be compatible with the surrounding areas.

Our current codes and processes, like access and circulation codes, don't even really allow us to achieve those without some concessions. Increase increasing density alone will not solve the afford affordability crisis. It's part of the solution, but we also need an increase in land supply. We need more supply in all market segments. Also, infill develop infill and redevelopment is more expensive than traditional greenfield development.

While there is potentially less infrastructure cost, the existing land values and demolition significantly increase the price, and there's not the same economy of scale there is with smaller conversions. It it also happens slowly compared to new development. Properties convert to higher uses gradually, and this will not address our immediate need. Additional land for single family owner occupied homes is missing from the plan. Much of what is left is being up zoned.

I've heard the argument that single family homes are not an efficient use of land and will not be included in future planning. Again, planning is not just an accounting exercise. We need to be stewards of our quality of life and the character of our community. Meeting most of our future housing needs with high density apartments forces our community into being tenants and puts the dream of ownership homeownership out of reach of thousands of Clark County citizens. This broadens the gap between the haves and have nots and eliminates the opportunity for equity associated appreciation and generational wealth.

This is especially the case for marginalized communities. While millionaires and billionaires get richer renting us apartments, our citizens are priced out of an already thin pool of owner occupied homes. Over time, owning is more affordable than renting. Ask anyone who's owned their home for a significant amount of time. The prices are fixed. Your interest rates are fixed. It doesn't go up with inflation as much as it does renting. Furthermore, we'll attract what we plan for. While Clark County used to attract the best and brightest from the metro area, we'll now be at risk of becoming a hub for low income and subsidized housing. Without housing stock, it will be difficult to attract quality employers.

We need to provide move up housing opportunities, increase supply to make existing housing stock more obtainable. To conclude with the comp plan, we need to not only consider complying with state bills, but also ensure we have a plan that maintains the quality of life, character of our community. We need to give future generations a chance in finding a piece of the American dream here in Clark County. A modified alternative three is the best of the options presented. But from what I hear, alternative three includes all the site specific requests.

They're not all equal. They should be they should not be lumped together. And you look at all of the site specific requests. They they need to be looked at individually, and I don't believe that's done to my knowledge. Regardless, as soon as this plan passes, we'll be in a deficit of economically feasible housing to meet the community's growth. Prices will have to rise to make them economically feasible construct. Without additional supply, we'll not be making housing more affordable. We'll just be getting less for the same price. To really adjust affordability, we need to consider solutions that include some targeted expansion of the urban growth boundary and significantly increase the supply of economically feasible buildable land. And that's a segue to the next item, which is the agriculture study.

And how it relates to the comp plan is that the challenge we're running up against is that as we've grown and the UGA has expanded, we have bumped up against the ag land in many locations. The areas around these parcels are characterized by urban development. Agriculture on some, not all, I don't I don't wanna even get say all, but on some of these parcels is no longer productive or practical. These are some of the parcels that the cities have requested to be rezoned to more compatible uses. If they don't convert, development needs to leapfrog over them, creating less efficient planning.

They block critical infrastructure and transportation and utility corridors. They also cause more environmental impacts with more sprawl having to go across those parcels to serve our population. We'll have vacant parcels surrounded by urban development. We need to plan smarter. One of the 15 goals, goal eight of GMA, includes conservation of productive agricultural lands. But it also requires balancing the goals, and that doesn't supersede all other goals, including housing, four, and economic development, five.

Sir, your time has expired. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yep. Okay. Again, we have some people on there that didn't be able to get on. What I think I'd like to do if we don't mind commission, is we'll just get these people in and out. But I think I'll start calling people off of the list from last week first to start this process. But if you hear me stop and pull someone off of there, we'll kind of do both. Yeah. Jeff, what do you have?

Carl, we do have a couple more people who are online that we wanna take care of them.

Were they online when we started? Yeah. Okay. Alright. Go let's go ahead and get them out of way.

Alright. Good. Caller, you've been sent a request on mute. Please go ahead and do so. Spell your name for the court reporter and go ahead with your comment.

Robert, you've been sent a request on mute. Please go ahead with your comments.

Chair, I wonder if they need to be told to hit the star three.

Yeah, can you just tell them what the process there is just to make sure they know what they're doing? Jeff?

If you're calling in, please hit the 3 button. Otherwise, please go ahead and unmute, and go ahead with your comment. Okay. We'll go ahead with go on to the next person. Caller, you've been sent a request to unmute. Please go ahead and do so. Spell your name

for court before. I've already testified.

You might need to tell the callers to push 6. 6, unmute them. Thank you. God bless.

Thank you. So someone's already testified. So That was the two people.

Joe? We have one more. Caller, you've been sent to request on mute. Please go ahead and do so. Spell your name for the court reporter and go ahead with your comment.

Can you hear me?

Yes. We can. Could you speak up a little bit?

Sorry. I had difficulty, and the star six did it. Thank you very much. My name is Robert Mentor, and I'm speaking on behalf of the Nevin property as well as Clark County in general. Lived there all my life. Really love Clark County. Camas is a unique area with lots of growth potential, obviously. It has great schools. It's beautiful. Who wouldn't wanna live there?

Smart growth is important for the county, and can't disagree with almost anything that Eric said. We've got to understand and take advantage of this opportunity because in twenty years, what will we look like if we don't plan accordingly? This growth is coming. And like everybody, we wanna try to control it, but we won't but we have to identify it and understand it's coming whether we like it or not. With that said, the Nevin property itself is approximately a 140 acres.

There's opportunity there. There's opportunity to provide jobs. There's opportunity to add housing. There's opportunity to do things with it. It's on a corridor that is surrounded on three sides by development.

Oaxhuga is our neighboring city, and they are going to town on the South and have plans for the East. It it seems a little shortsighted to think that we would ever work that land from an agricultural farming standpoint. I can appreciate the need for farming and hope that there's opportunities to do more of that within the boundaries of the county, but to ignore this one surrounded, no water seems shortsighted and problematic for you guys and the future of our beautiful county. That's that's pretty much I I wanna recognize that just within the last month or two, I think, and maybe it's a month and the council might know this, that a neighboring property right beside us, 20 acres, was annexed into the city. It was in the UGA boundary.

Our property has a sliver of about a quarter of an acre in the current UGA boundary. And that property right next to us was just brought in 32 lots on 20 acres is what I'm understanding that's being zoned for. And that isn't even as dense as we really need to be thinking about. We need density so that we can get affordable housing, but we also need the options for other opportunities for other income groups. As mentioned before, my cousin Bob Nevin speaks to the fact that he zoned five acres across his whole six seventy acres, and he is gonna be selling those at five acres at a time if we aren't brought into the urban growth boundary.

And I don't mean that as a threat. I just use it as an example.

Sir, your time has expired. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Okay. We seem to have no more. What I'd like to do is there's some reserve chairs up here and I'd like to call four at a time. And so once I get done I'll just keep the chairs up and then again reminder three minutes. We have a lot of people that want to speak and so just try to, you know I don't like cutting you off. Know it's hard for me. What I'd like to do is make sure that we're lined up and ready to go.

So let's go through this. Is Mike Pauletto here? Mike, can you come up to the you'll be up first, Mike. Is David McDonald here? David, can you be in the chair, first chair? Is it Diane Dempsey? Dempster. Dempster. Diane, can you come up in the yeah. You're up. Yeah. Move. There we go. Craig Hoover. Craig, are you here? Hello, Craig. Randy Friedman. Randy, can you go there? John Kowalski. John, are you here?

Heidi? Boy, I'm looking at looks like Cody. Is it you, Heidi? Okay. Can you sit there? And then next up, it looks like Justin Berger. Justin, not now, but you'll be up. He was on the phone. Thank you. Courtney Hendrix, are you here?

Bear Bo Dobson? And I'll just stop there. Mark Lead. Mark, are you here? Okay. So we got a lot that aren't here. So we'll just start with this group here. Make sure you state your name. Of course, speak slowly for Cindy, and we'll go from there. Thank you.

Okay. My name is Mike Pauletto. Last name Pauletto, p a u l e t t o. I'm one of the owners of the property out near the casino that is proposed to be annexed into the city of La Center. And so I didn't get this property voluntarily, a couple of people went bankrupt and so I ended up with it.

And it appears to be more of an anchor than an asset right now, especially with the proposed zoning of agriculture. So, I grew up in the Emcraw River Valley in Oregon and we had a ranch, 800 acres. We had timber, cattle, 80 head cattle, 400 head of sheep, and 30,000 chickens. So, I understand farming. We had hay ground, not very good hay ground because it's in the foothills, but we also worked ground down next to the river. So I know what prime agricultural ground is. I have some friends in Woodland. I've been in their Woodland property in the bottoms. So I understand that. So I petitioned Johnson Economic Forum to do an assessment of our properties.

There's 60 acres of us and to look at that property. It's zone prime agricultural land. It is not in my opinion based on my years of experience. That's

why

I got an expert and I paid $13,000 for this. I understand the county paid 200,000 for their planking plan. I did a specific one for this 60 acre area. Okay? And so I've been trying to produce something off of it.

The hay ground is poor and so I can't even get anybody to take the hay off it anymore. So I mow it and it lays down and becomes compost. I've also been raising organic grapes and berries and they finally after five years are doing something worthwhile, but it's taken a long time because this ground is not very good. So, in addition, the county have spent nine years trying to get a permit on this for expanding the property to more usable use, landscape yard and some other activities within the zoning. And we're on our third set of county people in nine years going through and everybody wants something different.

We continue to review, spend money, send stuff in, and we're on our third round again. And so the wetlands people decided that we started in 2016. We had 0.7 acres of wetlands. They've now condemned over two acres of our property as wetlands, which is not very usable and I don't consider that prime agricultural land. So the county has not helped us anything to be productive on this property.

So, believe the assessment that was done by the county was done in a big broad brush and was not done as it should have been in individual groups or locations. I'm not saying five acres at a time, but I'm looking at 60 acres here that doesn't fit the need of or the use of prime agricultural area. Thanks.

Thank you for your time.

Good evening, Commissioners. David McDonald, Richfield, thank you for being here and all your work. I'm a former member of the Buildable Lands Committee and also a supporter of designating and conserving agricultural lands of long term significance as required by law. Based on the county's 2002 buildable lands report, which was approved by the Department of Commerce, and all of the county's resolutions that they passed since 2022, all forecasted growth can be accommodated within the existing UGA's. That's what the record shows.

The testimony and submissions last week, along with the county's own data, highlight that the cities would have surpluses of housing and employment if you approved alternative to as is, surpluses. Thus, it reinforces the fact that the UGA's have sufficient capacity to accommodate the growth. My mother used to tell me that there's a difference between want and need. The cities want to have an expanded growth boundary, but they don't need it. There's no legal justification for the expansion at this time.

Next, designating or de designating ag lands must be based on science and law. None of us can whimsically pick and choose criteria we believe will support a particular parcel's long term commercial significance. That's why we hired an expert. The county did that, and the report by that expert specifically states that they use a data based approach consistent with the WAC and DOC guidance, and specifically relied on GIS data, federal, state, and county data sets, established criteria for determining whether lands are characterized by urban growth, used, capable of agricultural production, and whether they demonstrate long term commercial significance. Claims that the consultant did not consider certain criteria misrepresents the consultant's report.

The consultant evaluated all 11 criteria. You can find that on pages 37 to 58 of the report. They did so and picked relevant and applicable criteria for this study, for this county, at this time. Each of us may have different views on what criteria should have been used, but that's why the county went through a methodical, detailed process to hire an expert to do the work, utilize the most applicable and relevant criteria and standards, and then uniformly apply them across the county. Thank you all for your time and your work, and I hope that you choose wisely.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Diane Dempster, d I a n e d e m p s t e r. For thirty five years, I bought and sold produce from growers of all sizes throughout Washington and acted as a marketing agent for many. I have seen firsthand how loss of farmland can deplete a region's food supply. I moved here seven years ago and was shocked by the lack of infrastructure in the agriculture community.

Producers need cooling facilities, processors, and support businesses to be successful. Most of the produce consumed today travels from California, Arizona, Mexico to get to our tables. Climate change and lack of water causes California growers to move to other states and countries, increasing the distance traveled. Produce is harvested early to survive the long journey and the two to three weeks it gets it takes to get to our tables. Consolidation of the grocery industry means less choices for consumers and poor quality food.

The alternative is to support local agriculture. It is not too late, but we can't lose any more agricultural land. Our local farms are very productive. One farmer I talked to produces over 80,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables on seven acres. There are many other successful farms in the county and near Ridgefield, but uncertainty and urban encroachment make farming difficult.

Producers are resilient, but they need land in contiguous parcels and protection from conversion to development. Land near urban areas can be farmed successfully when right to farm laws are enforced and the community supports its producers. Schools, childcare centers, grocery stores, restaurants, processors, and you and I as consumers, all can support growers. Without agricultural land, we don't have farmers or fresh food. Constant development pressure increases the cost of land, so those who want to farm cannot afford it.

The Hinton Development Group's agreement to buy the Jones land for single family residential development if it's included in Ridgefield's urban growth boundary is a prime example. The landowners sell to developers and the cost of land goes up. Farmers produce a wonderful array of food and flowers, but they also employ people, buy goods and services, and pay taxes. This helps to keep many businesses afloat, thereby enhancing the local economy. All evidence in the record shows the county has been feverishly converting agricultural land for non agricultural purposes for the last thirty five years.

Many promise to protect and conserve farmland until they vote on a comprehensive plan update agreeing to its conversion. We cannot afford to lose any more agricultural land for our food security, our health, and our community. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Commissioners, counselors, Randall Friedman, R A N D A L F R I E D M A N, on behalf of the CAMAS Earth Day Society. I'm here to discuss why CAMAS's alternative three doesn't comply with the state's Growth Management Act, but more importantly, how that alternative irreversibly robs environmental value from our land and denies our next generations the opportunity to live, work, and play as we do today. Society is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the stewardship of our natural environment in CAMAS, preserving and furthering the legacy of Earth Day. We seek to bring basic environmental agreements forged by CAMAS's own Dennis Hayes to Clark County and CAMAS. First, I recognize your planning director's outreach to myself and several others, and appreciate the time we had to talk about the substance of these issues.

Alternative three creates three concerns. Growth Management Act deficiencies all center on a few important aspects, land use, utilities, climate change, and transportation to start. The common threat is the environmental threat of sprawl, leading to what Strong Towns has termed the great American Ponzi scheme. Next are irreversible impacts to soil, water, and air. Despite all the low impact principles we advocate for in Washington, the reality is we clear cut, strip, recompact, and pave over large tracts of land that naturally filter and attenuate changing water patterns.

For Southwest Washington and Clark County especially, we are dependent on groundwater for our water supply. This remains an unsung value to our range and agricultural lands. Urbanizing through future sprawl creates downstream impacts, specifically in overall ecosystem depletion. At some point, we run out of band aids. Finally, alternative three develops rural ag and natural escapes with car based travel, denying future generations choices how they live.

They are denied the very choice to live in a more sustainable life through successful brownfield development, rather than another generation of sprawl. If growth is inevitable, we should recognize some past errors. Earth Day's environmental basics suggest a different growth model. Planning should not reward and incur sprawl. Consider the full range of direct and indirect impacts to soil, water, and air.

Finally, recognize the immense brownfield opportunity in Camas and the region for recognition in future reuse of a low carbon, affordable, and sustainable center. Visiting the Friends of Clark County Picnic several years ago, I spoke with some of you about how CAMAS can do better growth. Brownfields are admittedly more difficult. Greenfields, perhaps easier in the short one by us and our children in the future. We ask that you withhold support of Camus' special request for inclusion of the Nevan properties within alternative three, and explain your reasons why. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Next.

Good evening. My name is Heidi Cody, h e I d I c o d y. I live in Vancouver, and I work for Washington Conservation Action. I'm following up on Alondra Abrego Biveros' testimony from last week. Alondra, who works for Southwest Washington Equity Coalition, asked counsel to not de designate any ag lands on behalf of 12 groups, which are mostly organ mostly local community based organizations of color who submitted a letter to county council on December 15.

That letter asked council to support and protect farms, forests, open spaces, and connected wildlife habitat and to not grant urban growth area expansions to the cities requesting them. The groups asking this are NAACP Vancouver, Fourth Plain Forward, Alliance for Community Engagement Southwest Washington, Vancouver Metro LULAC forty seven thousand and twenty six, Vancouver Audubon, Odyssey World International Educational Services, Sierra Club Lewick Group, Washington Conservation Action, Columbia Riverkeeper, Native American Youth and Family Center, also Native American Youth Center Action Fund, Southwest Washington Equity Coalition, and Vietnamese Community of Clark County. Together, we ask council to conserve our remaining ag lands for our food security, our climate resilience, and our children's futures. Clark County residents need to have autonomy over our local food supplies for future emergencies. We agree with the Ag Commission that we need to put the brakes on ongoing loss of high quality farmland.

Our comprehensive plan must protect folks who continue to be impacted by systemic racism, poverty, and environmental injustice. Conserving farmland aligns with the Growth Management Act requirements of reducing sprawl, protecting the environment, and protecting climate resiliency. Specifically, that comprehensive plans and development regulations adapt to and mitigate the effects of a changing climate. Since Richfield and La Center's urban growth boundary expansion requests are close to tribal lands, the tribe the Cowlitz tribe ought to be included in this decision making process. You can't have food security or climate resilience without land for farms, forests, and connected wildlife habitat.

Once the farmland is gone, we can't get it back. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Okay, the next group. Is it Andrew Seca? Is Andrew here? Okay. Anne Foster? Noel Laverne? Ann, are you here? Ann, you're up first. Is Noel here? Okay. Ian Harkin? Is it Luis Rivera? Walter Valencia? Back together.

Oh, Walter. Okay. Ron, looks like ARC or ACE. Ron, you're here. Ian, McArie Beach. Ian, are you here? Jamie Hausley? You can just stay there, Jamie. Okay. Alright. Go ahead, ma'am.

You've got a team.

You

can start now. Go ahead.

Okay. Good evening. My name is Ann Foster. It's spelled a n n. Last name is Foster, f o s t e r.

And I'm speaking on behalf of Friends of Clark County. Friends of Clark County is a nonprofit advocacy organization representing thousands of residents of Clark County, and we've been around since the mid nineties. Since the Buildable Lands Project Advisory Committee, FILPAK, filed their report in early twenty twenty one, Friends has consistently supported alternative one because it was the only alternative that prohibits expansion of our UTAs. Our position is grounded in two basic principles. One, all existing urban growth areas have capacity to accommodate all of the forecasted growth.

Two, our agricultural lands are precious, and no lands currently designated as ag 20 should be converted to another use, losing their use as agricultural lands forever. The county has always targeted agricultural lands of long term commercial significance for conversion to housing and employment uses. We support an alternative approach that the current designated ag lands are ag lands of long term commercial significance, and there are more lands that qualify set qualify such that the county must take actions to determine how many of these additional lands should be designated. Starting with the passage of the buildable lands report in 2022 and culminating in issue paper number four from community planning, counties' many decisions culminated in a resolution allocating employment, housing, and population numbers to all the jurisdictions. We supported that resolution.

It's important to note that no officials from the cities of Ridgefield and La Center gave testimony at that May 2024 hearing, leading to assumption that those cities were comfortable with the resolution and the allocations. Tonight, we are simply asking the planning commission to follow the law. Chair council chair Sue Marshall has often advised the public to speak your values, unquote. Looking forward together with those of us speaking our values, Clark County and the cities should focus on creative urban planning within existing UGA's. We are confident that Clark County and the cities can provide the required housing, reducing miles traveled, reducing greenhouse emission gas emissions, and improving walkability with no expansion of the current UGA's as foreshadowed by the VBLM report.

Thank you for your comments, ma'am. Have run out

of time.

Thank you.

Okay. I got it. Alright.

Next up. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Noelle Loeveren, n o e l l e, last name l o v e r n. And I'm speaking on behalf of the Building Industry Association of Clark County. I'd like to frame my comments around three core concepts. The problem we face, the property assumptions behind the plan, and the process that brought us here.

The problem, housing affordability and economic competitiveness. Clark County is facing a housing affordability crisis that mirrors and, in some ways, exceeds what we're seeing nationwide. Housing costs are pricing families, workers, and young professionals out of the market. And Clark County has become one of the most constrained regions in the state. At the same time, our regional economic outlook is concerning.

Job growth is not keeping pace with demand, and we cannot attract or retain job creators without adequate land, not just for business operations, but for the workforce those employers depend on. Companies today expect communities where their employees can live, work, and play close to jobs with attainable housing options. Without sufficient buildable land and realistic housing capacity, Clark County risks falling behind competitively both economically and socially. Number two, the property reality, overestimated capacity. The comprehensive plan is built on a series of foundational assumptions, beginning with the vacant buildable lands model.

However, the Johnson Economic Study, which was formally submitted to the council and commission, clearly demonstrates that the VBLM overestimates achievable housing capacity in Clark County. The densities assumed in the model are not realistic given the market conditions, infrastructure constraints, and development feasibility. The study shows an overestimation of approximately 30%. This is not an abstract number. These are, the amount of people that that are are going to be needing housing and may not, be able to find that over the next twenty years, those are workers, families, seniors, that may be displaced, forced to commute longer distances, and leave the region altogether.

The process. Number three, collaboration must matter. The comprehensive plan is intended to be a collaborative effort between the counties, cities, experts, the community. By all accounts, jurisdictions across Clark County engaged in a good faith analysis, public outreach, and technical review to develop their proposals. I am encouraged to hear innovative solutions that the cities have come up with. And, however, I am confused by the county's hesitancy for some jurisdictions proposals.

Thank you.

All right. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Ian Harkins. That's I A N H A R K I N S. And while I'm also here on behalf of the Building Industry Association of Clark County, my comments tonight are mine, and they reflect my reality.

I just recently turned 27 years old, and I've lived in Clark County for the vast majority of my life. My entire extended family was born, educated, and raised in this same community. I should be able to live where I grew up, and I should be able to do so somewhat affordably. Sadly, the reality for me, my wife, and the vast majority of those in our age group is anything but. Homeownership in Clark County is consistently being put out of reach for younger generations, and it is being done so at least partly through acts by this body.

There are several factors in our housing crisis, but improper land management is absolutely one of the reasons why. Younger generations should not be forced into perpetual apartment renting in order to live in Clark County. Many of the people in this room bought their homes, achieved the dream of homeownership, and younger generations just don't have the same chance. That's not right, fair, or equitable. We all deserve a chance at achieving the American dream of homeownership, especially considering homeownership is the number one key to unlocking generational wealth.

And you can help make that happen by ensuring there's an adequate land supply available for housing that people can own. I strongly support the city's specific requests found in alternative three warrant a far more thorough investigation by not only the planning commission, but the county council. I want nothing more than to have an equal chance to own a home and raise a family in the same place that I grew up, But that can only happen if there are homes available. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Next.

Good evening, chair Johnson, commissioners, counsel. I'm Ron Arp, AARP. I live in Brush Prairie, operate a business and serve as president of the nonprofit Business Leaders Group Identity Clark County. We appreciate the collaborative nature of your meeting, and thank you for welcoming comments over two weeks. We submitted a letter supporting option three to any extent possible and wish to express our support for city requests presented last week as well as site specific requests.

We are a growing community in a growing state. We will need flexibility and capacity to achieve and accommodate our anticipated growth. Council was given ranges for population growth from the state between 11.5% and selected 1.4%. This signs us up for about 01/4000 more homes and about 88,000 more jobs, most of which will need a job site. That's about 40% expansion in twenty years.

The process has been made more complex by HB twelve twenty requiring a balance of housing across median income brackets plus new climate considerations. In the last year or two, our local and statewide housing production is nowhere close to these goals. We're trending to about half that rate and even less for multifamily units across the low to middle income brackets to support our next generation of citizens and workers. There's a significant disparity between what needs to be built per the draft comp plan and what actually and practically can be built. We are relying heavily on spreadsheets, but the cold reality is that not every parcel is going to develop at projected rates and time frames.

We asked the city and county community development experts, three of them, whether in five years, they thought housing would be on track to the plan. And all three said no with nervous laughter. The planning commission and the county council can support achievement of our twenty year population and employment growth goals, by affording flexibility through this comprehensive plan update And then doing everything in our power to streamline the development process for those in the private and public sectors, taking significant risks to produce the housing and job sites that Dart County will need. It will take a spirit of collaboration and interdependency, but we believe housing and employment goals can be achieved while protecting the environment and beauty of Clark County and while preserving ag lands that are most suitable for livestock and crop production. It's in this spirit of balancing these challenging interdependencies that we urge option three.

We remind you that this is a growth management plan, not a growth prevention plan. Thank you. Thank you

for your comments. Mister House.

May I push and give them some time?

While we're waiting, is Janet Hedspath here? Janet, can you come up in the first chair? Justin Wood, second chair. Nelly Doroshen, did I say that right? Nelly, are you here? Eric Gallamo? He already talked. Okay. Great. Jim Byrne. Jim, are you here? Come on up, Jim, in the third chair. Is Mark Lopez here? Mark, you're in the fourth chair.

I hear you, Cindy. I will go slow. Jamie Hausley, J A M I E H O W S L E Y. When we look at how we plan growth, we have to take into account the real world challenges we face. The city's alternative two plus requests present a vision that is grounded on market conditions and community realities, something that the county staff recommendation unfortunately overlooks.

I'm going to focus on three areas here the need to recognize local conditions, the unrealistic density targets, and the importance of factoring in site specific concerns when looking at resource properties. The Growth Management Act encourages cities to use their own market factors to recognize local conditions, ensuring that plans are realistic and feasible. I've given you a handout from the state's Department of Commerce that highlights what their buildable lands recommendations are. And it says that cities should have distinct market factors for their own UGA's and their own cities. Instead of looking at the reality of development, natural environments and existing infrastructure play a crucial role, these recommendations from county staff seem to treat dimensional as a two dimensional math exercise, ignoring how projects are actually executed in the real world.

Point number two density targets outlined in the VBLM are not achievable with the current planning assumptions. The density targets set by the VBLM are lofty at best. We've already submitted evidence by the Gin Group that's the second handout I gave you showing the different types of structures that are needed to meet these types of targets. They're simply unrealistic in practice. Parking requirements and costs associated with multifamily development further challenge these targets.

For example, multifamily developments require about 1.5 parking spaces per unit to get private financing, and structured parking is simply prohibitively expensive outside major urban downtowns. The county's density targets don't account for these real world constraints. Moving to part three. The ag study overlooks important factors, particularly in areas adjacent to urban growth areas. The county's ag study fails many crucial elements.

Specifically, properties adjacent to UGA's have urban growth characteristics already identified by many of the cities and should be evaluated with those specific factors in mind. Site specific requests, which I will pass out in the binders afterward, including many made by the local property owners, need to be considered for realistic growth planning. And we've submitted many of these requests from the property owners for their inclusion, both in alternative two and three, that have specifically studied these properties. And they highlight the importance of other factors. And specifically, the Washington Administrative Code 3,651,950 says that those 14 WACC factors are nonexclusive.

So you can look at water. You can look at economics. To summarize, we suggest that the Planning Commission recommend alternative 2A, the city's request. And we respectfully request that you make that recommendation to the county council. Thank you.

Thank you. Next.

Good evening. My name is Janet Hedgepath, j a n e t h e d g e p a t h. You are nearing the end of a long process to complete the county's comprehensive plan. Information has been gathered, committees formed, ideas presented, open houses held, and deadlines extended. Now's the time to make a decision.

That decision is complicated by new laws and regulations, as well as a changing environment. We will need plans that mediate the effects of a changing climate. Food security, housing, and transportation will all need to be considered with fresh eyes and a social justice lens. Relying on business as usual will not work. The goals of the comp plan clearly state that the goals of the comp plan can be reached without de designating precious ag land, or adding large parcels to urban growth areas for more single family housing and urban sprawl.

That argument hasn't worked well in the past, and it ignores large swaths of the population that aren't going to be buying a house and that have been left out of the planning. While my personal preference is alternative one, I believe we should look to the experts in the room. My kudos to the staff who have diligently worked from the beginning of this endeavor. They've adapted to new laws, considered changing climates, researched possible outcomes, and juggled competing interests. They have heard and considered all these arguments that have been made tonight.

They are knowledgeable and have worked incredibly hard. While listening to all the perspectives, they have considered the county as a whole rather than the interests of a privileged few. I strongly urge you to adopt a hybrid alternative too that aligns with their recommendations. At the very least, listen to the ag board and don't de designate any more ag land under a switch and bait project or proposals that the county has affords ag line. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you for your comments. Next.

Good evening, chair Johnson, commissioners, and counselors. My name is Justin Wood, j u s t I n w o o d, and I'm here tonight on behalf of the Clark County Association of Realtors. I've been monitoring the comprehensive plan update since this whole process began, and it is important to outline the steps and decisions that that have informed the three land use alternatives before you tonight. The planning assumptions that guided the vacant buildable lands model are flawed. A 6% vacancy rate, 50% conversion rate for critical areas, and 70% redevelopment of underutilized residential inventory within the twenty year cycle is unrealistic.

These assumptions, have created, assumed housing capacity or shadow inventory. Depending on up zoning and infill alone won't achieve greater affordability for both rental and ownership housing. Up zoning land within the Vancouver urban growth area from r 12 to r 24 will take away land that could otherwise be developed into ownership opportunities for Clark County residents. Infill takes time. Waiting for the highest and best use of a given property will compound the housing crisis, especially given the cyclical nature of multifamily development.

The vast majority of infill projects can achieve the economy of scale that Greenville Greenfield development can. Our members make the dream of homeownership happen. We need to continue to build fee simple homes throughout the county to accommodate the demand at of the a burgeoning population. We welcome, on average, over the past five years, approximately 7,800 new residents each year. Many of these new residents have higher incomes, and they will buy what is available.

The county's limited inventory of two point eight months of December 2025 explains this and displays this. We need the land capacity for townhomes, single family homes, cottages, and condominiums so both new and longtime residents aren't priced out of buying a home here in Clark County. We don't need to follow the same path of markets in California and New York that have already priced out the vast majority of homebuyers. Concerns over environmental impacts and urban sprawl are important, but so is the dream of homeownership and generational wealth. Our association urges this commission to recommend a mix of alternative two and three with a distinct focus on-site specific requests contiguous to the UGB or in close proximity to it.

Making this recommendation will compensate for the flawed assumptions already baked into the comprehensive plan cake. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Next.

Good evening. My name is Jim Byrne, b y r n e. I have lived in Ridgefield for thirty four years. I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the current comp plan. I attended both of Ridgefield's community engagement meetings.

There was no clear growth consensus. Alternative One meets local and state requirements for providing adequate housing options for all income strata, as well as balancing housing growth with local jobs. I support alternative one with no expansions of the UGA. County staff recommends no on expanding Ridgefield's UGA. Staff says all cities can accommodate population growth in existing UGA's.

Please support county staff. The county makes assumptions in the vacant buildable lands model, which estimate the amount of developable acreage available in the city's UGA. Richfield doesn't agree. Go with the county's numbers. They are less biased.

Clark County committed to an agricultural land study and created an agricultural advisory committee commission. Richfield and LaSena were proponents. This study determined that there was much nondesignated agricultural land and the designated agricultural lands were appropriate. The county commission confirms ag land is in short supply, and none should be removed by rezoning. Between 2017 and 2022, Clough County lost 34,699 acres of farmland, roughly 38%.

In return, Richfield got lots of single family housing, overpriced land, increases of traffic, lagging infrastructure, lower water tables, Costco, and an In N Out Burger. The county is required to consider climate change in its planning. Ag land and open space is more resistant to climate change than the asphalt and concrete of new developments. New development will promote sprawl and increase driver journeys and mileage. I'd like to point out two examples of proposed farmland conversion near where I live.

Ag lands of long term commercial significance will be changed. The first is the Jones Farm Business Park, 79 acres located adjacent to the new elementary school. The second is the three Greeley Farm complexes totaling 131 acres and five forty nine proposed lots. So five forty nine homes will be built on former ag land serviced by the same existing two lane farm roads, not including traffic from the new school. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments. Next, Mr. Lopez.

Hello. My name is Mark Lopez. Pardon me, sir. Oh.

For you not to be filming while you're giving testimony. We do have CVTV recording everything.

It's on myself, just so you know. Is that okay or no?

Selfie. It's a selfie?

Yeah. It's it's me. Is that okay?

Yes, sir. Okay.

It's important to hear. My name is Mark Lopez, M A R K L O P E Z. And I'm here as a farmer, not a developer, not a lobbyist. I work the land. I employ people. I feed people. I'm here because the decision to make right now determines whether farming remains viable in Clark County. The decision is simple. Alternative one, preserves 100% of existing ag land. It aligns with state law.

It honors the ag study and protects food security. But I want to start with the economics. Clark County already produces nearly 60,000,000 a year in agriculture. That's with farmland disappearing. We have almost 2,000 small farms, real family operations.

Think about this. Tourism already brings in over $740,000,000 a year and supports nearly 7,700 jobs. In similar Pacific Northwest counties, like Thurston County, agritourism provides real farm revenue that coincides with farming and supports not just farms, not just jobs, but the people and families that run them. That means farmland's not an economic drag. It's an underused engine here in Clark County.

Protecting it isn't sentimental to smart growth. Now here's some data that the council can't ignore. In 2021, investors purchased over 40% of all homes sold in Clark County. That's nearly one out of every two homes, not bought by families. In fast growing areas like Ridgefield and Salmon Creek, that number jumped to nearly 67%.

Two out of every three homes went to outside investors, mostly out of county and out of state. LLCs, corporations, not individuals. This trend accelerated into after 2018 as investors chased cheaper land, fewer regulations, higher returns, and proximity. So when housing becomes a speculative asset, farmland becomes the next target. I think we've heard this before a few times. Okay? So say this slowly with me. If twothree of our homes already are being bought by outside investors, why would we voluntarily hand them over our farmland next? That's not growth. That's extraction.

There's smarter path. Owner occupied ADUs are one of the fastest low cost housing tools we have. They deliver housing months, not years. Use existing land and infrastructure, reduce pressure to expand UGA's.

Thank you for your time, sir.

Yep. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Okay. Next up is Stacy Shields here. Stacy? Okay.

Carmen de Leon. Is Carmen here? Stacy, you're up at podium. Is Steve Marash here? Is that Steve? Steve here? Yep, Steve's here. Is Harsha Azwathpa I can't read the name. Harsha, are you here? Okay.

Olivia Zimmerli, are you here? Steve, you're in chair one. Yeah. Teresa Hardy, are you here? Teresa, can you come up?

Mike, you already went, right? Lisa Robbins? Yes. Can you come up here, please? Okay. Go ahead, ma'am. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Stacy Shields, spelled s t a c e y s h I e l d s. By way of background, I've been a land use planner in Clark County for over thirty years. I'm here tonight on behalf of Anderson Dairy Farm. Most of you that have grown up or lived here are familiar with it. It's a landmark. They provided a lot of milk for a lot of years. And I want to talk about their site specific request that they submitted. Their site is located off 162nd 4th Plane. And I also want to offer you tonight excuse me, a different perspective on egg.

We're approaching this with sort of a one size fits all, and I I don't believe that to be true in all cases. Anderson Dairy has done everything right as a business partner and actually a member of our community. In 2022, they shut down their farm. They took pictures of the dairy cows the last day they milked it. It wasn't a a fun thing they wanted to do.

Quite honestly, with the topography of the land and the proximity to Lackamas Creek, they had runoff from the animals and the pay the hay and pasture. And what it was doing is it was polluting Lackamas. They feared a shutdown, so they said, we're gonna do the right thing. In 2024, they partnered with the DNR, and they took 700 acres of their farm. They did sell it, but they created a preservation project.

This spans from city Of Vancouver to Camas. I think we can all admit that's quite a legacy for a business that's leaving Clark County. I also wanna note the longtime owner and operator passed prior to these events. So that brings us to where we are today. We have this land, and it's not suitable for egg. It has peat soils on it. If you look at your own egg study, page 11, it notes it's not feasible. The request is to bring in this land, and I don't believe that it's actually been looked at. The site specific requests were kind of put in a bucket. This is adjacent to the Vancouver urban growth boundary.

It has utilities. It has transportation. It has a subdivision to the south and the west. There's industrial development. I ask that you actually look at this site because it makes sense. This would allow Anderson Dairy to continue to serve the community in a different capacity, which is housing. That would fix your housing crisis, and it's a different need. We have to sometimes look at these parcels and realize they're no longer viable farming. And so I ask you to look at this particular one. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Next.

Good evening. Steve Morash, M O R A S C H. And I'm with the Lander Home Law Firm. I'm here tonight on behalf of Hinton Services. Hinton is a developer that's been in the community for over thirty years. They've done residential as well as mixed use projects across Clark County. They actually built the roundabout at Pioneer And 65th in Ridgefield as part of their Ridgefield Crossing development. They're under contract to purchase what's been referred to by the city of Ridgefield as the JonesMcPherson property. I submitted a letter to all of you earlier this week through Jeff. I hope you've had a chance to read it.

I only have three minutes. I'm just gonna hit three highlights quickly. The first is following up on a comment Stacy made about a lot of these getting put in a bucket and not really looked at. I noticed the Jones McPherson property wasn't on any of the maps that were shown at the at the last hearing. But it is on the city of Ridgefield's map, and and Steve Stewart presented it on on his presentation.

And it's it's Area 12. And I submitted the map with my letter, but this is the map the city submitted on, looks like, 03/20/2025, the city of Ridgefield's preferred alternative. It includes three areas. Area 11 that was shown last week. That's the North Industrial Reserve area.

Also Area 2 A, which Steve Stewart talked about, and then Area 12, which is the area that I'm here to discuss tonight. At the last hearing, commissioner Haroun raised a question whether economic viability of farming could be considered. And the answer to that question is in more detail in my letter, but it's clearly yes. The growth, appeal of the 2007 plan, what the court held in that case was that the county couldn't prioritize urban economic development over farm land. The court never said you couldn't consider economic viability of farming in the first place.

And I think when the when the test is long term quote commercial significance, how can you not consider economic viability? And if you look at the Lewis County case, which is cited in my letter and quoted, the Lewis County actually overruled the growth board on this particular point where the the Lewis County Washington Supreme Court in Lewis County said that economic irrigation and other considerations of the local agricultural industry were appropriate to consider. And they faulted the growth board in that case for not considering those factors. So you can definitely consider whether or not a particular property can be farmed economically. And just to conclude, the rest of my letter goes through the 11 whack factors and explains, why the Jones McPherson property based on what Steve Stewart said, the Johnson economic report that I submitted, and Jones' testimony, that property does not meet the test for long term commercial significance.

Thank you.

Thank you, Steve. Next.

Good evening. My name is Olivia Zimmerly, o l I v I a z I m m e r y l y. Thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm a fifth generation Ridgefield resident who grew up here and currently lives in the community. I graduated from Ridgefield High School several years ago. My family has been able to call Ridgefield home for one hundred and forty five years now. On my grandfather's side, they were potato farmers who farmed throughout Ridgefield. Hence, name of the high school mascot, the Sputters. On my grandmother's side, they were dairy farmers. While agriculture is a proud part of our history, the potato fields no longer exist in Ridgefield, and the dairy farms have moved east.

I currently own property in the proposed north expansion area in Ridgefield, and this land does not contribute to local agricultural production. There are no working farms in this expansion area. It does not provide food resources for the county, and it is not viable for agricultural production. I support preserving productive farmlands, but this land does not meet that standard. The proposed expansion area is surrounded by the city limits on three sides, making it ideal and logical choice for urban growth while maintaining consistency with the existing city.

Of the nearly 200 acres of this area, approximately 50 of those acres would be held as open space with parks and trails. This helps create a balance of growth with preservation. Many young adults, myself included, want to stay and reside in Ridgefield, but we need more housing options, including affordable homes, close to services, and good paying jobs. We want to be able to afford a home, build our futures, and raise our families here. This expansion helps make this possible for our generation while also supporting responsible growth for future generations.

If this area is not included in the UGA, individual property owners may build single homes over time, limiting future planning opportunities and contributing to urban sprawl. I strongly urge the county to select alternative two, including the UGA expansion of Ridgefield. This decision supports housing opportunity, thoughtful growth, and a thriving community for generations to come. I also strongly encourage you to review the expansion area and the maps carefully. I think this will help you clarify on why this makes sense. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments. Next.

Hey, Carl. Can they speak more into the microphone, please?

Yes, Cindy. We can do that. Thank you.

Good evening. Hardy, T E R E S A. Hardy, H A R D Y. I'm actually here for Mark Leed for the first part of what I'm going to say. He's the chair of the LeWitt chapter of the Sierra Club.

And we are in support and agreement with Friends of Clark County, all the organizations that Heidi Cody listed, Futurewise, the equity organizations, and many others. I'm also here for Wendy Cleveland, who is on the Conservation Committee. And Battle Ground is seeking to de designate more than four fifty acres of land against the recommendation of the Ag Commission. While they are proposing it as a trade swap for Meadowglade, it is no trade at all. Meadowglade is mostly residential in churches and schools.

It's built out. To annex Dollar's Corner, they will have to get the de designation of 450 acres. The mass the vast majority is untouched lands. We need to protect our air and our clean water, especially in that area. And once our natural resources are gone, are lost for good.

On January 6 at the County Council meeting, the CREDC contract came forward. The contract was for 2025 and 2026. There was no contract for 2025 and there was little to no work done as Councilor Belcott said, for the 2025 contract. Yet counsel went ahead, one abstain, no from Councilor Belcott. Three others voted to go forward the CREDC contract.

The 2025 contract is for $100,000 out of our general fund money. They also voted to approve $100,000 for a 2026 contract. Out of our general fund money, we are giving $200,000 to CREDC. Their job is to promote economic development, marketing, business recruitment, business expansion, and related services. Let's use that money to look at how we can really address jobs and economics in our county before we start expanding out into land.

At that same meeting, they approved the 0.1% sales tax, which is to be used for housing and related services, including the construction and acquisition of affordable housing, constructing mental and behavioral health related facilities, funding operations, new units of affordable housing. The focus is affordable housing. Once again, that got approved at council. Supposedly that could bring in $6,000,000 Let's use that money and be creative on what we're doing about housing before we expand out more. We haven't even really looked at using this allotted money that was approved of what we really can do with what we have.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time. Next.

Good evening, Clark County Council. My name is Lisa Robbins, L I S A R O B B I N S. I encourage you if you're having problems staying awake to please stand up. I am a farmer and a provider of a local food through Tunnel Vision Produce LLC in Richfield, Washington. Like many others, I grow food directly that benefits our communities.

Currently, I operate on leased land, which has been a vital and essential part of my farming operation. I have been a native of this farm rich land for fifty nine years. However, the rising cost of farmland has made it increasingly difficult for me to sustain in agricultural activities here due to increased land speculation. I strongly oppose any efforts to alter the current land designation. The designation of agricultural land is a critical safeguard that protects our farmland from urban sprawl, speculative investments, and irresponsible development.

Changing this designation would undermine decades of land conservation efforts. The already wide open door of increased land speculation that drives up prices and makes it nearly impossible for farmers to afford or retain the land necessary for farming that definitely directly benefits and feeds food to our community. Maintaining our local agricultural land is a vital for ensuring food security, especially in times of crisis. Natural disasters or emergencies can disrupt supply chains and limit access to food As taught to me by Clark County CERT program, our real learning example was the tsunami in Japan. Having local farms and resilient agricultural infrastructure ensures that our community can remain self sufficient and adequately nourished during such events.

Losing farmland to development not only threatens local food access, but also compromises our ability to respond effectively to emergencies and safeguard public health. Preserving the current land designation is essential for sustaining our local food supply, agricultural viability, and protecting our community's resilience in times of crisis. Thank you for listening, and I look forward to this ongoing discussion.

Thank you for your comments. We'll go one more group before we take a break. So is Justin Wood here?

He's already spoke.

He spoke. Okay. David Morgan? David, come up and you're at the podium. Patrick and Kelly Dornes, are both of you or just one of you? Both are going to speak? Okay, go ahead and take chair one and two. Houston, is it off? Who is that? Houston, are you there? Yeah, come on up. And Olivia Zimmerli. Joyce Joyce spoke. Thank you. Bruce Barnes. Bruce? No Bruce? Kelly McNeil? Kelly, are you here? Come on up, take four.

Okay, go ahead, sir.

Thanks. Hello, my name is David Morgan, D A V I D M O R G A N, from Ridgefield. I'd like to encourage alternative one until there are ways to protect the current farms and forests and allow for no net loss of productive farm area and encourage current farm and forest actions. Growth is finite. The land is finite.

We've heard a lot of discussion about the economics of housing, that more land and more houses is not going to make those single family houses cheaper. It's got to be a density piece. All of the land that's out there right now, that's all we get. The next conversation will be why we need to move into forest ground, because we're going to be out of ag ground. I've been in Clark County all my life.

I manage 1,500 acres in Ridgefield, and I regularly get calls from people who are telling me how they can avoid the land use regulations and develop the property. I would urge the development commission to adopt alternative one until there are tools in place to accomplish the goals in the comp plan, reduce sprawl, protect habitat. A farmer open space property can become a farm or other land, but not once developed. All areas in the growth zones can increase density and increase usage by adding in the tools for ADUs and using land efficiently. If there are not tools in place that allow for known loss of functions, then alternative one is the only responsible pathway.

I support the idea of the transfer of development rights, but that would need to be thought out carefully and have ways to preserve functioning ag land as well as incentivize folks to keep open space that could be farmed for food or fiber. And I would be happy to work on this idea with the Ag Commission and make tools that will allow for more responsible development. The current farms in Clark County provide air, food, and renewable materials. We are working on oak habitat transfers to provide for critical areas, wetland habitat transfers to provide for critical areas, and fish habitat for critical areas on my farm. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments. Next.

Good evening. I'm Patrick Dorris, p a t r I c k d o r r I s. And I'm one half of Flat Tack Farm. So we're a small diversified vegetable farm here in Vancouver. We're heading into our ninth season growing.

We grow mostly mixed vegetables, fruit. We got some birds as well. But just like as a testament for the viability of farming, especially diversified vegetable farming in this area, We have four full time employees, one part time employee during the season. We served over 1,700 produce boxes to the community last year, and all of that's on two acres of land. So the farmland can be farmed on.

It's excellent excellent soil. You can grow great food, but you gotta have people there to do it. It does provide jobs. It's an excellent way of living your life, I think. It's just it's one of a kind, you know, like you don't wanna pigeonhole people into having kinda dead end jobs. But anyway, we also provide food to local restaurants, the food bank, and the Vancouver Farmers Market.

Let's see. Where are we at?

And, you know, kinda going back to my previous point, it's it's not that the land can't be farmed. It's that the price of land is unattainable for people my age and younger. Anecdotally, there's a five acre parcel just north of us, and it was valued at a $100,000 an acre. That's no water, no electricity. It's just a piece of grass.

Most people can't afford that and grow a business on that. So, you know, I guess, you know, if you de designate more ad land, you're gonna drive the prices of the land up even more. Like, you're gonna shrink what you can grow on, and that little nugget is gonna cost so much money that it'll just who knows what it'll get turned into. So definitely urge you to choose alternative one, which preserves a 100% of ag land, aligns with state law, honors the study, protects future food security. Building more houses on prime ag land will not fix the larger problem of rapid acquisition of single family homes by hedge funds and investment firms.

Thank you for your comments. Next.

Hello, I'm speaking on Oh.

Sorry, was supposed to let you switch up the mic first. Sorry.

Hi, my name is Kelly Peters, k e l l y p e t e r s and I'm speaking on behalf of Flat Tack Farm. We, I'm the second owner. We farm again reiterating what Patrick just said here in Vancouver, Washington. We're right on the border of the current ag boundary off 1 19th. We definitely urge for number one to not de designate our farmlands.

A little bit of a history about our business. We know the value firsthand of our agricultural land. We grow over 60 different food crops, feeding over a 100 families for our local community. We are a successful farm business that has expanded every year since we started. Our business almost doubled in growth during the pandemic shutdowns.

We need local food sources for the future. Currently, we actually only lease land at our farm. We looked for over seven years to find farmland that was affordable in Clark County, and it was absolutely unattainable for us. We I ended up purchasing 20 acres of agricultural land in Wakayakum County. Many new and younger generation farmers that want to own farmland within the county struggle with high land prices, making starting a farm business impossible.

We urge the county to uphold the state laws and follow the completed agricultural land study and choose alternative one. Please help preserve future land food security and opportunities for farmers in the county. Once farmland is paved over, you can never get that back. The issue is not that the land is not viable for farming, it is that farmers and people that want to grow food on the land do not have equitable access. By de designating farmland, you take away the possibility of future farming and self sustainability during during crises and climate change within our county. Thank you.

Thank you. Next.

Good evening. See if I can get, I guess I'll hold it. Good evening, Houston, AHO. Houston just like the city, H O U S T O N, AHO, A H O. I'm speaking about the egg study.

It contains numerous selective sighting and convenient omissions, the most prominent of which is probably the egg prime land definition in itself. So this egg study doesn't actually use the USDA definition of prime egg land. It selectively cites the this microphone's terrible, sorry selectively cites only the first sentence of the actual definition. It conveniently emits definitions that require the sourcing of available and reliable water, growing season and climate limitations, flooding and saturation lists, long term economic productivity, and sustained yields. Missing that opens up a whole another door of what hasn't even been talked about today.

So I'm gonna cite USDA 2022 census report which is cited in the ag study and conveniently omitted when it comes to a number of factors, a few of which are the total ag production in terms of value. So 51% of Clark County farms reported total sales of under $2,500 80% reported under $10,000.97 reported under $100,000 That's total sales, not gross profit. To put that in comparison, the median income for 2023 in Clark County dollars is just short of $95,000 Other areas that aren't discussed in here, and nobody's brought it up, we're talking ag, but the single largest ag sector in Clark County is nursery stock, sod, floriculture. And from 2017 to 2022, it had a significant increase in revenue from 7,200,000.0 to 19.1. It contains almost a third of the total revenue in Clark County.

To not correlate that to home construction, development work is probably a pretty convenient omission in there. There's a number of other oh, and then for that one third of total revenue, that acreage according to the egg study only takes up three sixty seven acres. There's over 76,000 acres in Clark County not currently being farmed with no crop. Okay? So I think stuff isn't adequately being used.

Thank you for your comment.

Hello, County Counselors and Planning Commission. I'm going to read this. I'm sorry because I'm nervous. My name is Kelly McNeil, and I'm a first generation farmer who chose to build a farm business here in Clark County. I own and operate Milk and Honey Flower Farm in Lisinna. We are a small family run agricultural operation. My family and I grow crops. We raise animals for food. And, we steward land that had been farmed long before us, and we hope that it will be farmed long after us. Every policy and land use decision that you make, whether it's zoning, setbacks, or permitting, shows up very concretely on our farms.

Clark County often speaks about supporting agriculture. And tonight, I'm here to remind you what that actually requires. It requires protecting farmland as farmland, not just in name, but in function. It requires recognizing that agriculture is a working industry, not just a hobby. It requires listening to the people who are on the land every day.

We actually moved our entire farm operation in 2023 due to encroaching development on the previous farm we had in La Center. This move was tremendously costly to our farm operation. When farmland is high priced and fragmented to the point that it is no longer workable, it is almost always lost permanently. That loss reaches beyond agriculture and impacts food security, local jobs, environmental stewardship, and the rural character Clark County has committed to protecting. Policies must be shaped with direct input from farmers who are actively operating today.

Not just models, reports, or assumptions about what farming should look like. Agriculture is diverse. A flower farm does not operate the same way as a dairy, or a berry farm, or a hay operation. One size fits all rules rarely fit anyone well. As you make these decisions, I urge you to ask, will this help working farms stay viable or push them out?

Does it recognize agriculture as a business, not just a landscape? And, farmers who are actually farming part of shaping it. I'm here because I care deeply about this county, this land, and its future. I want my children and I want other farm families to have the option to continue farming here if they choose. Please do not de designate ag land in Clark County without a clear plan for designating more. The process of making these decisions must involve farmers. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments. Okay, I'd like to take a five minute break so we can let our court reporters stand up and stretch. And then we'll be back here at about 08:35. On some names. So if you're here, come on up.

Patrice Lucas, are you here? Yeah. Patrice, will you you'll be up next first. Richard Drylan? Did I say that right, Richard? Course. Okay. It'll be seat number one. Diane Dempster.

She's already done it.

She already did it. David McDonald.

He's already done

He already did it. We're flying here. Michael Jones Junior. Michael? Michael, you'll be seat, I don't know, two, it looks like maybe. Mhmm. Joe Zimmerman. Oh, you already went? Okay. You're good. Alright. John Spencer? John, you'll be in the final seat there. Okay. Thank you again.

We've got about I don't know. It looks like a little less now. Probably about 10 or 15 more. And barring anybody coming up or anybody else that didn't sign their name that wants to come up. So we'll get going again. Don't forget to state your name, spell it, speak slowly, and sorry that I have to interrupt you at three minutes. Minutes.

Hit the button. Okay.

Is this working? Okay. My name is Beatrice Lucas, B E A T R I C E l u c a s.

I have no audio.

Why? Okay. We'll figure that out. One second. Can you hear me, Cindy?

Can now. If you said anything before, I didn't.

We'll start again. We'll start again. Okay.

My name is Beatrice Lucas, B E A T R I C E L U C A S. I'm here with Miller Nash and we represent two parties who are looking to bring property into the UGA. The first is Gerald and Beverly Jones who own three parcels of property about 45 acres on 2 79th next to the city of Richfield limits. The city testified that it supports including these properties and others in the UGA and to meet their planning goals which should be given deference. The second party is Romano Development which has an interest in a portion of former Anderson Dairy Farm property.

These two parcels are on 1 62nd And 58th just south of 4th Plane and about a 160 acres adjacent to the city of Vancouver city limits. We support an alternative that includes site specific requests such as these on the edge of or near current city limits, even properties designated ag. There are at least three reasons to include these properties. They are characterized by urban growth. They do not have long term commercial significance for agricultural production.

And there's a need for the county to modestly expand boundaries to meet affordable housing goals and plan for housing at all income levels while at the same time meeting realistic density assumptions. Each property owner and others will testify or already have testified in support of adding these properties given the time constraints on testimony, but the record contains plenty of support for these requests. The county should not make deed designation decisions based on the recommendations of the county's ag study because the recommendations are not compliant with the GMA. In making or retaining designations for agricultural lands, the county must consider the guidelines developed by commerce. Among the guidelines adopted are 11 factors in WAC three six five one nine zero zero five zero three to assist the county in evaluating ag lands for long term commercial significance.

The ag study dismisses eight of the 11 factors stating they will not be utilized for use in final evaluation. But they are not optional. These are available availability of public facilities, availability of public services, proximity to UGA's, land use settlement pattern, intensity of nearby land uses, history of land development permits issued nearby, land view value under alternative uses, and proximity markets. All these factors are relevant and should be considered, must be considered for de designation decisions. It would be clear error not to consider them.

The supreme court in Lewis County stated that the county must consider development prospects, the possibility of more intense uses in determining if land has the enduring commercial quality needed to fit the agricultural land definition. It would conflict with the GMA and cause impacts to much needed affordable housing supply to retain ag designations for land that does not have this significance. The county agreed to consider site specific requests and must ply all the factors. Compliance with the GMA is not achieved by retaining inappropriate lands for Ag designation. Thank you.

Thank you. I know we're rushed because we have three minutes, but remember the court reporter's trying to keep up with us. Do your best. Thank you.

My name is Richard Dearland, d y r l a n d. I'm a retired person and have lived in Clark County, Washington, Ridgefield for thirty six years. And during that time and before, worked as a federal regional hydrologist in the Intermountain, Northwest, and California regions of the US government, along with serving five years in Washington DC. I support alternative one. After listening to the various presentations by the six or so population center cities of Clark County, I'm concerned about the lack of existing or proposed UGA expansion discussions that would address current and impending water issues with surface and groundwater and our storm water handling, retention, and recharge infiltration components.

These concerns are supported by a series a series of scientific study reports by the Washington Department of Ecology, water supply, water available, changes to environmental conditions published starting in 2023 for the Waira twenty seven groups, which includes Cowlitz, Lewis, San Ouachugo watersheds of the Lewis River watershed complex. It is not enough to just state we will mitigate these different effects if we expand out Because experience in monitoring afterwards has shown us that certain types of water issues have long record of being one of the of the unmanageable actions. Some types of impacts and trade offs cannot be effectively mitigated even when the mitigation is in the same watershed. And trying to mitigate in a whole different watershed, when threatened and endangered teeny adult salmon and fry habitat or groundwater is involved, it has limited effectiveness and numerous problems. For example, in the current comp plan proposed city of battleground alternative to the expansion west of Highway 50 Tie 502 towards Dollers Corner is also the location of the headwaters of Mill Creek North, which has extensive tea and e salmon production for the East Fork Aldous River.

Protecting this water related resource was not even mentioned in the battleground present In Washington State, GMA concurrency laws such as WAC thirty five one ninety six eighty forty, and WAC RCW 36 m d a one nine five, and others, which cover water, sewer, and road construction before any housing and commercial development starts need better compliance within the urban urban growth boundaries, as well as those proposed in compound alternatives one, two, and three. Examples of inadequate compliance are 1 79th Street North, Vancouver, and Northwest Street, Ridge Hill. Thank you for your time.

Evening, Michael Jones, m I c h a e l j o n e s. Good evening, chair Marshall, council Young, other council members, commissioners, and staff. My name is reverend Michael Jones. I serve as the vice president and the chair of the legal redress and civil rights committee for the NAACP.

Mike, slow down a little bit.

Oh, let me slow down.

I

come before you tonight on behalf of the NAACP in solidarity with the coalition of community organizations that have already spoken clearly and courageously in support of protecting Clark County's agricultural lands. I I want to be very clear that this is simply not a land use conversation. This is a civil rights issue. This is a food security issue. This is a climate justice issue, and this is a question of whether our comprehensive plan will protect the people who have historically paid the highest price when planning decisions prioritize private expansion over public good.

As a public theologian rooted in black and Afrocentric traditions, I am taught that land is not merely a commodity, it is a sacred and generational, and it is tied to survival. Black indigenous immigrant and low income communities understand this deeply because we have lived the consequences of displacement, environmental harm, and policy decisions made without us, but felt most heavily by us. As you've already heard from community leaders and policy experts, the data is clear that this decision is not about capacity but about priorities. The agricultural land study that this council unanimously required makes this unmistakable. Clark County does not need to sacrifice prime farmland to accommodate projected growth.

96% of our designated agricultural lands are classified as prime farmland or farmland of statewide importance. Once these lands are converted, they are gone forever. Food sovereignty matters, climb resilience matters for communities already impacted by systemic racism, poverty, and environmental injustice access to local food systems, healthy land, and ecologically stability is not abstract. It is survival. You cannot talk about resilience while dismantling the very systems that sustain it, and you cannot claim equity while improving and approving decisions that deepen vulnerability.

The NAACP urges its council to accept and act on the findings of the agricultural land study and to reject urban growth expansions that undermine long term food security and climate resilience. We also call on you to ensure meaningful inclusion of tribal nations particularly where proposed expansions impact lands near tribal communities. Council members, planning is a moral act. The choices you make today will determine who eats, who breathes clean air, who bears risk, and who inherits opportunity. Protecting agricultural land is not anti growth, it is pro people, pro future and pro justice. Once the farmland is gone, we cannot get it back, but right now you have a choice. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Next up.

This is Commissioner Leduc Montgomery. And I just wanted to make another disclosure for the record. In my private civil rights practice, I did do volunteer work for the NAACP Vancouver Legal Redress Committee. That was strictly civil rights law, nothing to do with GMA, and never discussed any of the testimony or GMA issues with them. And it pertained to the same case I disclosed last week. So I feel comfortable hearing the testimony and not presenting in conflict of interest but wanted to note it for the record.

Okay. Thank you.

Good evening commission. My name is Joe Zimmerman and I am an owner of Busy Farms in Brush Prairie. I'm a fifth generation farmer. Pretty darn proud to say that my family's on that map over there as, only a few farmers are nowadays. Folks, want to start my testimony by pointing out, shall we say the irony in Clark County that as more people move or I should say with a question that do you think as more people move into our county, do you think there's more or less people that are coming to our farm saying that they want fresh produce, that they want, you know, fresh fruit and that they want to, come to our agritourism farm to to attend our pumpkin patch.

Do you think there's more or less every time another family moves into the area? And one of the things we're gonna see is as our continues to grow and and as a farmer, I have to say I do realize it will continue to grow, it always will, that there's more and more people that are going to want to see those farms remain and they're going to want to be able to support those farms with their dollar to see them remain. Folks, what I really wanted to testify before you about today is the economic viability of agriculture in Clark County and I'll tell you right now, you're gonna hear an awful lot of people say that it's not viable. It's, you know, you can't make a profit anymore and I'm gonna tell you that that's a bunch of b s. Okay?

For this exact same reason that IBM isn't making typewriters anymore folks, it is the year of our Lord 2026 and there's an awful lot of people out there with Agland in Clark County and they're gonna tell you that it's not profitable and and if you spend the time to ask them, tell me a little bit about your operation. What they're gonna describe is an operation that their grandfather did and then their dad did and now in 2026, they're upset that they're not profitable because they can't do the same thing they you know, have been doing for the last seventy years. It's 2026, you're gonna have to change and roll with the tide and if you do, you can be extremely profitable. Folks, I just printed my w two's today. I employed over a 126 people this year and without going into too many details, we returned over a million dollars in payroll back into the community.

That's one farm and we're only farming a 105 acres. I'm pretty damn proud of that. Okay. I want you guys to know that agriculture is profitable if you'll let it be. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Good evening commissioners and counsel. My name is John Spencer, j o h n s p e n c e r. I own Get Together Farm in Oaxhugal. I also happen to be a former city administrator and an elected official on the Port Of Kemos Oaxhugal. I was the one pushing for the airport to come into the UGA.

I feel very harsh coming after after Joe there. That guy's good. But I've got the same message. You you you're hearing two sides of a coin. Is it profitable?

Is it not profitable? I started five years ago with no agricultural experience at all. I've produced a few 100,000 pounds of food, a few $100,000, And as I continue to grow, I see a lot of potential for my future in my farm. I submit to you that those who argue that farms are not viable have a very concerning lack of creativity and business acumen. Or maybe they're just greedy because they want to sell off and get a lot of money real quick.

I'll leave it up to you. I actually have no problem de designating agricultural land if you re designate agricultural land elsewhere. Let's go for no net loss and do no harm. I also think you should be looking very closely at TDRs, transfer development rights. It's a good idea. Again, let's do it right. Let's take the time to research it and get it right the first time. Have a great evening.

Thank you. Okay. Let's continue on here. Tom Meyer, are you here? Come on up, Tom. You're at the mic first. Janet Hedgecraft. Janet? She She spoke? Yep. All right. Alejandro Jimenez. Alejandro are you here? No that was not that was Alasson. That was somebody else. That was Okay, Moe you spoke. Mark you spoke. Therese you spoke. Anne Foster.

She spoke.

Spoke. You guys got a Walter Valentina. Walter are you here? No Walter. Isaiah Irish. Isaiah come on up. And Claire Manning. Claire. Okay is there anybody else just real quickly that did not sign up that wants to speak tonight?

I signed up.

What was your name?

Bruce Barnes.

Bruce, I don't know where he's got 40,000,000 papers here. Bruce come on up and sit in that chair there. Did you speak? You didn't speak last week did you Bruce?

That's amazing.

Alright. Come on up. You can sit there too. If I miss you just make sure. We'll start off with this group, okay? Go ahead sir. Ready to go?

Yeah. Commissioners and Council members, I'm Tom Meyer, T O M M E Y E R. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on preferred alternative for the 2025 comprehensive plan update. I am in favor of alternative three because that is the only alternative that rural site specific requests are considered. The staff recommendation appears to be a blanket no on all rural site specific requests.

I'm presenting tonight for your consideration that the process for evaluating rural site specific requests be based on individual merit and not as an aggregate. I am the owner of three contiguous properties in the Northeast Quarter Section of 18 consisting of lot six, ten point one acres, lot seven, seventeen point five acres and lot number twelve, ten acres. I had request that these non conforming properties that are currently zoned ag 20 be rezoned to R5 in the 2025 comprehensive plan. I've been a lifelong resident of this area, Sarah since 1958 and as neighbors, we are proud of our community identity and farming heritage. My intent on the designation of R5 zoning is to maintain that feeling of rural farm community and to minimize the conversion of farmland into development.

We need to encourage and enable small farms to thrive and allow families to experience rural life. Five acre farms offer this opportunity and by rezoning these site specific requests, it will also be consistent with all the adjacent properties that are five acres or less. A question we should be asking ourselves is can we maintain a rural life atmosphere, encourage farming on a small scale and provide opportunity for future generations to enjoy farm life in our comprehensive plan update. I believe that this rural site specific request is an affirmative to those statements while promoting and maintaining small scale farming. Thus meeting the objective outcomes we all seem to be striving for regarding the preservation of our farmland.

In the agriculture report and the predominant parcel size it states, the analysis reveals that the agricultural land base in Clark County is highly fragmented. The average parcel size is 5.5 acres with a median of 4.6 acres. 96% of all parcels in the land base are smaller than 20 acres. These smaller non conforming parcels account for 75% of the total acreage in the land base. By rezoning these three parcels to R5, it would fit within what is already established within the Clark County agricultural base.

These three parcels if allowed to be zoned into five acres would create a total of seven five acre parcels thus allowing sometime in the future for four more families to enjoy a rural agricultural lifestyle. The comprehensive plan update is a huge lift that impacts our community. It is my hope as you have listened to my comments that I seek to preserve our agriculture identity in the SARA area while allowing for future families to enjoy as well. Looking for the win win. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Hello, my name is Isaiah Irish, I s a I a h I r I s h. Good evening. I am a representative on the Ag Commission, but my comments tonight are my own. I have lived in Western Washington my whole life and live in Ridgefield. I also run a small mixed vegetable farm in Lisner, Washington, Busy Beetle Farm.

I worked as a mechanical engineer for seven years in the county, living in Downtown Vancouver. The high points I remember from that time are Saturdays at the farmers markets, buying berries for a late breakfast, and warm Sundays at the river swimming in glacial water. These experiences, these memories we all have tie us to the land and bring us together. Living on this land, I feel a responsibility to speak up for those who have not have not been here tonight. The Doug firs, the ferns, the birds and the soils, the wild corners of this county that are waning, the berry fields being bulldozed.

What this county looks like in 2045 is up to each one of us, the decisions we all make. The culture of this place we live, it relies on all of us to represent the future that we want. When we reduce our vision of our future to density goals, we lose sight of real lands, communities, the creatures, and the water quality. Another speaker tonight praised Ridgefield, crediting the incredible growth for creating an amazing and vibrant community. I credit Ridgefield for being an amazing and vibrant community long before Costco and In N Out.

The community I found in Downtown Ridgefield, selling vegetables every Saturday, meeting my neighbors, meeting my wife. That amazing and vibrant community exists in spite of the record growth. If we want to live in a place with clear creeks, you pick berries, Christmas trees, the busy pumpkin patch, that is up to all of us. The decisions made not just in this room by the council but by each of us every day. The future we want can be realized. Local agriculture is not inevitable. Our culture depends on us. I recommend no D designation of ag land. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Next.

Hello. Good evening. My name is Claire Manning, c L A I R E M A N N I N G. Thank you for this opportunity.

Was here, me move this.

Oh, gosh. I was born and raised in Ridgefield, and I live and work in the community today. I've watched the farms I grew up with slowly disappear and turn into developments. I'm here to ask you to to depret, to to to prep I'm sorry. To protect what little agricultural land we have left.

Clark County is growing quickly, but agricultural land is not just open space waiting to be filled. Once it's gone, it's gone forever. Every time we de designate farmland, we lose not only soil and fields, but a piece of rich fields identity and history. I run a nature based school on the land here in Richfield. Our land is now completely surrounded by subdivisions.

What remains is rare. Every day, children step onto the land and experience something many of them don't have anywhere else. Soil under their feet, birds overhead, seasonal change, and a real connection to the living world. These moments matter. They shape how children understand where they live and what they're responsible for protecting.

It's also important that farms exist close to where people live. When farms are pushed farther and farther out of our communities, residents lose daily connection to agriculture. Farms become something distant and abstract instead of part of everyday life. Having farmland near homes allows children to see where their food comes from, neighbors to know their farmers, and communities to stay connected to the land. Agricultural land is essential to local food sovereignty.

When farmland is pushed out, our food is pushed farther away too. We become more dependent on distant systems and lose resilience. Protecting farmland near our neighborhoods helps keep food local, accessible, and rooted in community. When farmland struggles, it's often not because it lacks value, but because farmers lack support. Other counties in Washington, like Snohomish County, are choosing to invest in small local farms, and they're seeing agriculture succeed.

Richfield could choose that same path. That includes making it easier for land to be designated and redesignated as agricultural land, so farming is encouraged rather than pushed aside. Thank you.

Thank you for your time, ma'am.

Good evening. For the record, my name is Bruce Barnes, b r u c e b a r n e s. Thanks for the opportunity to speak this morning or this evening. First off, I'd like to say firmly no annexation into Vancouver, Washington. These rural communities need to stay rural.

Clark County needs to stay Clark County. The other thing I would like to add here is too much development. I see R50, R30 developments being proposed, five acre, three acre apartment complexes times you know 75 unit apartments per floor, times no parking, times no schools that can hold the capacity for all these developments. I don't see hardly any homes being built right now at all because the cost in permitting in Clark County between 261,000 and $277,000 in permit fees to build an average home. That's unobtainable for most residents in Clark County except for the big developers, right?

I've also seen in Clark County, Wisser Farms, Zimmerli Farms, Koons Farms, Spearster Farms, Azeta Farms, Lagler Farms, Hepman Farms, Anderson Farms and Arndt Farms all go by the wayside in my sixty years of living here in my entire life and that's just to name a few. I've also seen the weaponization of the Department of Ecology come in and say, oh, you can't use groundwater anymore. We're gonna have to shut your farm because you can't afford to pay for water to irrigate your crops on the price of water now and electricity. Right? Because now we're gonna all go to electricity which means less water because the Bonneville Dam, the Swift Power Powerhouse, the Yale Powerhouse, the Merwin Powerhouse, they'll all be running stuff through their turbans, the water through their turbans at an alarming rate because we're taking away natural gas in this state.

Right? I think you guys are tasked up here with a very important decision making for our future. Also, you can't afford a house right now. The average person that's buying a home right now is 40 years old. That's 40% down to $4,000 amount month house payment. That's $33 to afford an hour to afford a $1,700 apartment. Who can afford to live here? We've taxed ourselves out of here and and it's very important to have these open spaces for people to have the ability to grow crops. My mom and I had a one acre garden every year. I also kill my own food.

I hunt for deer, elk, barracougars, anything that I can feed my family with and I was taught that by my grandfather who's a first generation Clark County, my father which is second, I'm third, and my son is the fourth generation. I'd hate to see this place get any worse than it is, but I think that you guys are tasked with some very hard decision making. And also I'd like to add in my final statement, by 2030, 60% they say of all homes will be owned by the stock market. So that's another thing to add. Thank you so much for your time.

Thanks sir. Next.

Good evening. Tyler Phillips, t y l e r p h I l l I p s. I wanna talk about one aspect of the DIS related to housing. The DIS for Clark County's comprehensive plan contains at least one flaw that I've seen. It assumes multifamily housing development will address affordability without demonstrating the financial capacity to subsidize such housing at the scale required.

Based on data from Clark County's own affordable housing programs, creating genuinely affordable housing requires public subsidies of around 75 to $125,000 per unit. The county's proposal to accommodate 82,000 new households by 2045 with heavy emphasis on multi family development presumed to be affordable required upwards of 2 to 3,000,000,000 in public subsidy for even 30,000 affordable units. The capital facilities plan demonstrates no capacity to fund subsidies at this scale. This disconnect between planning assumptions and fiscal reality renders the housing element insufficient under the Growth Management Act. And I testify in support of alternative three along with all the site specific requests.

Thank you.

Thank you sir. Is there anyone else either online or in the building that would like to testify?

We do have one person online.

Okay. Let's try to bring them on.

Caller, we've sent you a request to unmute. Please state your name for the record and go ahead with your comment.

Hello? Can you hear me?

Yes. We can.

Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate you getting us in tonight, council. My name is Tonya Meyer. It's t o n y a m e y e r, and I am the cofounder, cofounder of Allen Creek Farm.

We're a 20 acre chestnut farm just north of the urban growth boundary in Ridgefield. My partner's family is our sixth generation ranchers and farmers, an encompassing more than 2,700 acres on the West Coast. And I am a Clark County native, a graduate of poor Vancouver, class of nineteen nineties, although that ages me. We have a chestnut orchard of over 700 colossal chestnut trees. Our farm employs two full time additional Clark County residents plus several temp workers during our harvest.

We connect with customers through local farmers markets and on our website. We also sell our fresh nuts at Chuck's Produce. Our agriculture designation means breaks on taxes and help with applying for improvement grants, which helps the local economy. Having an open land around is helpful during the harvest as the dust from our equipment can be bothersome to residential people. We try very hard to mitigate this issue with growing cover crops.

The farming operations are not compatible with higher density housing. We are currently one property from the urban growth foundry above Ridgefield. We urge the commission to consider only the alternative one option, but save our farmland. Thank you for your time.

We have another raised hand online. Carr, we have sent you a request on mute. Please go ahead and do so. Spell your name for the court reporter, go ahead with your comment.

Well, I'll say that, I know Bruce Barnes spoke last week, and I'd like to have the privilege of speaking myself tonight. I I signed up on email yesterday, and I would like to have a a right to speak. This is Okay. So when did this change that you, you know, you did this? God only knows, I guess.

So I've been taking notes, and boy, oh, dear. I could write a book on this one. Kimberly Goheen Alvin. I already spelled my name. So, again, living here in Clark County all my life, I wanna remind the public that that this commission can you hear me, or is there static?

No. Well, you're interrupting me. If you don't mind, if I could start over, I'd appreciate it. So I wanna remind the public and this commission of the inhumane chaos that happened during the COVID pandemic and will insist that the people never be locked down again. I think you you might have a part of that, and just make sure that you guys don't either shut down.

That's that's including our parks and open spaces are to remain open. And I hear that the parks and recreation have funding issues. I believe because of government overspending of hard earned tax dollars, you must cut dollar from the administration part of the government entity, not the workers. And this also applies to continued funding for our police and for our sheriff of whom we vote for. Chair. And I'd like to

Point of order.

Also know Yes. But Kathleen Otto

is not relevant to our topic that we're talking about. And I believe she she spoke last time.

Ma'am, this is not relevant to the topic.

So did other people,

ma'am, too. So I'm gonna have to cut you off and maybe at the next planning commission you can bring this up when we do business not we have a section where we do business that is not on on the so this is not relevant to what we're talking about tonight. So please I'm sorry to cut you off, we're gonna have to do that just because of time. So thank you and maybe give it a shot the next time we meet. Thank you. Okay. Is there anybody else out here? There's no one else online. There really? Okay.

That's it. There is no one else online. So with that said, I would like to close public testimony, bring it back. And the first thing I'd like to do is ask staff if they would like to respond to anything that they may have heard or want to bring anything to our attention.

Good

evening, Planning Commission Chair, Vice Chair and Councilors. Madam chair, and members of Clark County Council. What I will suggest is the council can I don't know if you're beginning your deliberation tonight, and you have until whatever time you want to close? We will take your questions and respond to some of the things that we heard from the cities if that's where you want to stand or where you want to start. So we're available to answer questions as you begin to deliberate.

I don't know if our legal counsel has anything to offer. Thank you.

I just want hello? Is this working? Yes. I just wanted to express my slight confusion about the process here. I know that after the testimony when everybody was here from both bodies, at some point there's going to be deliberation by the Planning Commission alone. So I'm not sure of the role of counsel here.

Well you're always welcome. That was a joke. I think and counsel tell me what you want to hear, but considering that we've got, we came to get all the testimony in one bite I assume, then the next step would be we would deliberate. It is 09:15 and I can, you guys can jump in here and gals can jump in here whether we want to just go, okay, we close public hearing, let's come back on our whenever you schedule us to a time when we can deliberate as a body separate of the council, correct, to respect their time. And again, tell me if you guys want to do something else. But before I get to you, is there anybody here that wants to comment on what I just suggested?

I would just say for the council we're here at the Planning Commission meeting as your guests and so Chair I think it would be up to you how you would like to proceed.

Yeah, that's a great point. It seems to me that considering that we give you advice and you make the hard decisions that we would just do that in our normal fashion where we would go and just okay, let's kind of hash this out. I think it also lends itself to a better debate internally than hopefully you actually listen to what we say sometimes and then decide whether you want to whatever you want to do. That was another joke, probably a bad joke.

We always listen.

I know.

So I would just suggest if the commission has any questions or however you would like to proceed.

Chair? If I might add, I agree with Chair Marshall. Our role here is as a guest. What I would say is that and I don't have any questions at this point for staff. But as they respond, if we did have questions, that would be great. But at the point in time when you begin your deliberation, that's when we are guess completely and don't take any part of that deliberation.

Okay. So I guess the first thing I'd want to ask is we have three alternatives. And each alternative well actually an alternative two and three we have numerous individual items that we probably want to look at individually. Am I correct on that? And then alternative one is just no change.

So we would want to go through each one of those individually and that's where I start looking at the clock going are we going to get through all of them? Probably not. My kind of drop dead date in my head is ten, But I'm not saying we can do that, we can continue on now here. But I'm saying if we're going to go through all of these one at a time each city and then address all the site specific requests. That's a lot. I just kind

of looked

at it that way.

You're talking I think about deliberations and what you suggested before is that you're taking it back to staff for response.

We did that and then they were that was it and then it came back to us to now talk within ourselves. Correct? So guess let's start here. I gotta let's start here. Commission, do you have any comments you wanna make or any questions that you have for staff in regards to this? Any commissioners? Say something.

This is Ron Barka. Yes, thank you Carl. I would expect also that staff will be prepared

to staff will

walk us through alternative two and three with the specific parcels that are to be reviewed for possible inclusion. As I see it from alternative one, We show up a little short for housing and employment capacity, but as it's been stated, the potential is there to overreach from our OFM numbers depending upon how much land we actually end up including. So I would say at our deliberation, we should be prepared to go through those alternatives in that fashion. And the other thing, and we may need a motion for this, but I would very much like for the Planning Commission to have a work session concerning TDRs because there's been a lot of testimony about trying to retain and protect agricultural land and at the same time the desires for many organizations saying that it's necessary or desirable to de designate and to come up with a working proposal. I think it's about time for the Planning Commission to have the option of seeing whether TDRs are a viable mechanism to introduce into Clark County.

And I don't know if you talking about that prior

to us voting on this? I'm just trying to get clarification.

Yeah, before we have our final vote on the alternatives.

Yeah, I am, well go ahead, anybody have any comments on that?

This is Leduc Montgomery. I second my interest in exploring the TDR option before we give our final recommendation. And also during deliberation, I'm interested in staff feedback about the Johnson study because we heard about that and also about, you know, in comparison to the Buildable Land study.

I will let the planning commission or the planning commission member speak. I can tell you that TDR in terms of history, has been in our comprehensive plan since 1994. We have gone to our counselors or commissioners asking for a TDR, a what I may call a pilot TDR. And each time, we were turned down. I can I can say that a TDR is an innovative tool?

Other counties in the state use TDR. Both at appellate court and superior court, we have been chastised, that is Clark County, for not having a TDR. I am open to having a discussion of t on TDR. But I will also say that the law, and some may be listening to this and said I'm wrong, I will take that back. But you need to have a TDR program in place before you think about the designation or other issues relating to ag.

That is how, one, you protect, you enhance, and you encourage support of agricultural farming in your in your community or in your county. I'm open to whatever the planning commission wants to do. I will only caution, and my legal counsel is here, We have missed the deadline to complete this plan update. I don't want to rush you, don't want to rush the counsel, but that's a fact. And I will stop there.

I'll go on if I may. We have not only missed the deadline, but our failure to complete the comprehensive plan update by the deadline has led to an appeal to the growth management hearings board that was filed yesterday. So the question is when we want to consider and act upon something that is not now in the schedule, how long do you want to take? A TDR program is not that simple and it will require some work.

But then wouldn't that lead us to if we and I'm just saying if we did vote on de designation, we're we're in the same boat either way. I'm sorry. Say again. If we vote on de designation of some ag lands, we're in the same boat. We're there's going to be litigation one way or the other. Correct?

It going to be is different from there is now.

Right.

And, yes. I you know, this county does a comprehensive plan, and it's always been appealed frequently by groups on

a you

know 180 degrees from each other. You know these people added too much ag land. These people didn't add enough. What? So there will be an appeal I assume just because there always is and because of the issues that are at stake. But right now we have an appeal and the appeal says that the statute required completion by December 31 and the county didn't do it.

Can I ask a follow-up on that? What is the outcome of let's say the the growth management hearing board says yes you missed the deadline. What is the material impact of that compared to missing the deadline, say, by another extra month? I'm just curious what the actual practical effect of

that is.

Well, that depends on how the litigation proceeds. And I'm not going to say exactly what will lead to what. But as we all know from our last bout with noncompliance and invalidity that puts at risk low cost grants and loans, well grants and low cost loans for public works projects, for storm water control projects, for all those sorts of things that the county would just as soon have a little support in producing. So that's just noncompliance all by itself does that. Invalidity can put at risk the ability of the county to allow vesting on certain, development permits.

So there are actual consequences.

Chair. Oh, I got two lines.

This is Commissioner Haroun. A couple of well, understanding is that I think King County was quite a ways behind on theirs on their comprehensive plan as well. That we're not unique. What I'm saying is we're not unique in struggling with the public process, trying to meet the needs of all our constituency, the tremendous amount of work the staff puts in to try to comply with all this stuff. I read the complaint that was sent over that we're being currently sued over.

And they're just basically basically that from what I understood, it's like that we get it finished. And I think we can demonstrably say that we are doing everything we can possible to get it finished and do it in the correct way for the public process. So in regards to TDRs, I really, really like the concept. And I would like to understand it better because I I am of the leaning that it would be a good tool for us to recommend to counsel that that would be included with the de designation. And that doesn't have to be that we have to come up with the exact what that TDR is.

But for me to even to like recommend it, I would like a better understanding of the mechanism that work. And then, you know, maybe however that that is baked in, that that could happen. But I think, presentation, by some people that are subject matter experts on that. It sounds like the city of Ridgefield has brought in some expertise on how that should be done. I would certainly like that. I don't want to drag out this process because I think that's a critical it could be a critical element. But also, I would like, obviously, keep everything moving forward and comply as quickly as possible.

So complying as quickly as possible is not what they're asking for. They're asking for a decision of noncompliance and invalidity. They and their punchline, the last paragraph is, you know declare non compliance, determine invalidity and then remand it to the county to finish as quick as possible which is what you read. But that doesn't mean that noncompliance and invalidity aren't there.

Chris, I will also add, commissioner Haroun. I don't believe that King County is out of compliance. There may be a city within King County that hasn't completed, so I want to state I want to correct that. I don't think King County is out of compliance or have not submitted their plan in a timely manner. I believe there's maybe one or two cities within King County that have not completed or are still in the process of completing because of a variety of issues.

So look at the county's 24 adopters. You can go to the Commerce website and see whether there any of them is out of compliance or that they haven't submitted their plan in a timely manner.

And I absolutely appreciate that. I just would like to make sure that we are producing the best product possible. And if it takes an extra week or two so we can get some really good tools to help preserve future farmland and resource land, I think that's worthwhile and it's a worthwhile risk. And that's just from my standpoint because I think it's an important conversation. I think it's important information.

Yeah.

We will take whatever the Planning Commission asked. We are here to support you and we are here to support the council as well. I can only say and professionally say that I wish and I can only wish that the TDR conversation have come up two or three years ago.

Me too.

Yeah. So, but here we are. I need to go to council. The Ag Commission that the council approved or appointed were charged to provide advice on agricultural related issues to council. I think they will be the appropriate group with the county supporting them financially.

Other counties that have established a TDR has had a consultant or those expertise in developing the program to help walk them through how to do so. Like I said earlier, I recall so many times I have brought the the experts. I'm not an expert in everything. We brought for terrorists in here to have that conversation with our council and the commissioners at the in place at the time. There was even a study, feasibility of TDR in Clark County right after the 1994 plan adoption.

It was shut down. So this conversation is not new. I'm not pushing back, but I can only be realistic. Okay? It would take at least more than six to a year to develop a working TDR. You have to identify where is the sending area and where is the receiving area? You can do it between counties and between cities. We don't have any other county that we plan for. We plan together with Cowles County. We don't plan together with them.

We don't plan together with Skamania County. So, the TDR has to be internal between the county and the cities all coming on board to determine where is going, what area would be the receiving area and what area would be the sending area. It's not an, it's a good technique. There's other options when you're developing a TDR that you can consider. Yes, you can have a interlocal agreement.

I'm not lecturing you but it's not an easy task that you can accomplish in the next six months. I have to go out with the support of the council and the county manager and ask for consultant to help us put it together. That's all I'm going

And, time is required to do the RFP. You know, that doesn't that doesn't happen overnight.

Okay. And I would really like to understand kind of where your thoughts are. But my thinking is not to develop the entire program, because I do understand that agreement stuff. But it's just to get a college level understanding of what that would look like, and that we could recommend, if that was our choosing, to not to say and it actually helps us with the city of Ridgefield in understanding what they're doing and saying, this is kind of how it works. This is the process.

These are the steps that are going to need to happen in order to do that. And then I think as a body, then we could go, we think this is a good plan. We'll move that forward. But it doesn't have to be the whole baked chicken.

And so what I was going to say is that, as Oliver mentioned, we did have a consultant come when we had a rural land study. And they put together a framework in 2012 on putting together TDR program for Clark County and developed a framework. We can share that document with you so you can review it and come prepared. It'll give you that level of understanding that you're looking for and would save us time.

That might be good idea.

I would add I spent some time looking and the Department of Commerce has pretty robust resources online for TDRs and like what's been done in other cities and counties, too.

I just I think we need to remember that we're looking at the three alternatives This

is something.

This Commissioner Fadness, sorry. I think we need to remember that we're looking at making determination

What's on these that? What's that, Cindy?

The screen cut him off, so I didn't hear anything he said.

Okay. Start again.

We'll start again. Okay. Sorry, Cindy. This is Commissioner Fadness, and I think we need to remember kind of in this that we're looking at making determinations on these alternatives. If we're looking to put these land swaps in now, we're kind of adding another alternative at the last hour. And we're looking at probably months and months until we can actually know how that's going to affect the alternatives that we make here, or the choices on the alternatives that we make. Exploring it further maybe in a future work session, but I think as it pertains to making decisions on the comp plan now, this is not the appropriate time.

Ross?

We were faced with alternative one which is probably defendable based on the OFM numbers, our vacant buildable lands analysis, the Ag Commission's work, and it will perhaps hold against the idea of de designating ag land this time. If that should hold up and we know that that would be appealed, it would be less than six years where we'll be facing this again. And in that period of time, there's going to be requests for additional ag lands to go in and be de designated. If we don't have a mechanism to genuinely protect and preserve farmland that has the opportunity to put some equity in there where land can be designated and de designated while we continue to grow, All we are doing is kicking a can down the road because we've run out of administrative time this time. So I came back to be on this commission specifically with the idea of breaking the cycle, and I want everybody to take an opportunity to think about this and not make it where every single time we have to make a decision it's the adversarial role of only one group against another with both of them trying to create a living for the future and to benefit Clark County.

It's unfortunate that it's happening at this late opportunity, but with what has been proposed, I think missing the idea of looking at TDRs and to what Commissioner Haroun had already said, I don't think the idea of incorporation of TDRs by themselves is going to drag out the administrative time. It's more along the line of having a clear understanding of what interlocal agreements would have to look like and for the planning commission to decide what lands, if any, are appropriate to be put into the mix and under what conditions. So I am going to make a motion that the Planning Commission do a work session on TDRs, bring whatever experts are available or just give us your past work, but I want us to have enough information for us to be able to look at whether TDRs are going to be part of our consideration and deliberation when we look at the alternatives. So I'm making this motion that we do this first.

We have a motion. Do we have a second?

I'll second.

We have a motion second to create a work session, correct me if I'm wrong, to support some type of information on TDRs. Can I get a roll call please? Oh excuse me, discussion, sorry.

So I'd just like a point of clarification. So with this motion prior to making any decision on alternatives, we will have this work session. So say it's next week.

Who's talking?

This is Commissioner Fadness. So we'll have this, say this next week. And then will will we two weeks? So we're pushing this We out another two

weeks made a fee so that we can get legal notice out, which requires

For a work session.

Mean, we get it to the paper. They take three days to publish it, and then we need to have, what, fourteen days? So it's and next week is a charter review commission meeting on Thursday night. So it's not going to be next week for sure. Think

Based on what staff schedule is.

Yeah. Okay. Yep. And then we'll have this work session and then we're gonna have to hold another hearing which we'll have to get scheduled as well. So I just wanted to clarify that that would have to be the process forward.

This is Commissioner Burtfeld. Can we do the workshop and the hearing on the same night?

We've done that before.

Yeah. But

but it still can't be next week.

No. But just per whatever staff schedule is.

Can I do Monday? I'm just throwing it out.

What? I didn't hear.

Are we limited just doing Thursday nights? Are we limited by law only to do Thursdays?

No. You can have special meetings but by your bylaws you're supposed to meet on I think a second and

I've just thrown it out.

You

call, we can ask for a special meeting. Yes we can ask for a special meeting.

So the clarification from Commissioner Fadness' question is can we schedule this as soon as staff says and whether it's a back to back meeting or the most convenient quickest meetings and hearings to deal with both the TDRs and the hearing. Yes? Do you understand what I'm saying Jose?

Yes, so currently based on the Thursday schedule, the twenty ninth would be the next hearing day we were looking for. We could have a work session before the hearing. Typically, work sessions would be at 05:30. We have some existing TDR information we can share with you. And then we can reach out to see if we can find someone to do a presentation. I know we had, I attended a meeting at the ICC that had someone come.

Or even your framework that you had.

Yep. Well

the work sessions typically don't have notice.

But it would be a hearing. The

issue is can we continue the hearing to the twenty ninth or do we have to re notice?

Ron did you have something to say? Your light's on.

Can we get through the vote and then talk about the date? We just

want to clarify that's what we want to do first. The discussion is happening.

Yeah, so just clarifying that.

Do we have to set, can we let them set the date?

Yeah, think from a functional standpoint, you know, I I believe having the work session and and the continuation of the hearing would be advantageous. And and even if we did it on the on the fifth, you know, our standard standard first Thursday. You know, if that's what's needed.

So we have a motion. Do we have a second? Have a second. Who seconded it? Alicia. Alicia. Sorry. So we have a motion and a second. We good on discussion? Can we get a roll call please, Jeff?

Mark Bergvold? Aye. Kyle Fadness?

Nay.

Ron Barka? Aye. Jack Caroon? Aye. Alicia Waduke Montgomery?

Aye.

Carl Johnson? No. Four two.

Motion passes. So that said, we've we're not gonna close the hearing. Correct? So the hearing is still open and again I want to thank the community for being so patient. Yes.

Sorry you need to state the date and time that the hearing will be.

Okay I will just yeah,

thank the community and please, you can see the minutiae and the moving parts that we are trying to get to this thing and do do it as quick as possible but with due diligence. That said, are we looking at Jose help me out here. The twenty ninth, is that the day that we're looking at? Continue till the twenty ninth? Yes. That is a Thursday. Okay. So we will continue this hearing. It is not closed until the January 29. Is that correct?

At 06:30 p m.

At 06:30 p m.

No. Work will be

at if anybody you're welcome to come to work sessions, but you cannot speak. You just listen. So if the the I'm only telling about the hearing.