Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Startary edition.

Yep. All right. Welcome everybody. This February 10th edition of the City of Oak Harbor Planning Commission. Um, I'd like to call the meeting to order at 6 PM. So, all right. The the first item on our agenda according to the bylaws is that we have to choose an interim chair. Um, so I'll open that up for discussion. Any nominations? You can't nominate. How do we pick an interim chair? I will nominate it. Do I have a second?

I'll second that. All right. All in favor? I I opposed. All right. All right. So, I'll serve um I'm Ryan Bradley. I'll serve as the interim chair. And with that, we will move on to our roll call. Actually, I should have probably done that one first. So, we have Jeffrey Ward, Kevin Wilson in person, um myself, Ryan Bradley, and our um city council, Brian Stucky is here. All right. Um I'm actually Cody B. Oh, sorry. Cody Cody.

Oh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh I do want to note that uh Commissioner Ward is not yet present in the meeting. Copy. Um, you said he was going to be attending online. That was our understanding. Yes. All right. Thank you. All right. So, that's our our roll call. Um, so the second item on our agenda is the approval of October 14th's minutes. October 14th, 2025, our regular business meeting. I'll move to approve the minutes. I'll second. I'll second it. All in favor?

I

opposed. All right. Approval of the minutes passes. All right. And the next item is our public comment. All right. During this time, citizens may comment on subjects of interest that are not on the agenda or on agenda items. To ensure comments are recorded properly, state your name clearly. Individual comments will be limited to 3 minutes to ensure maximum participation during the 15minute time frame allotted for this item. Public comments may also be submitted online at www.ocharbor.gov. public comment at least two business days in advance of an advisory board meeting. Do we have any public comments?

Yes, please. Uh my name is Denise Marian and I live in Oak Harbor near the intersection of Highway 20. Apologize. Address. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Apologies. uh 730 Southwest 19th Court in Oak Harbor, which is near the intersection of Highway 20 and Scenic Heights. Uh so it's just across the street from the trail head to the to Friend Marsh Trail. Um, and I recently uh got appointed to the parks and wreck committee and um I have an interest in city planning. Um I've been through the city plan. I I um taught uh geology for 26 years. Um and a component of every semester was climate climatology. So I'm particularly interested in the attention that has been paid in our comprehensive plan with respect to the effects of climate change, mitigating them and you know being resilient. Um I've looked through the I think it's a great plan and um I'm hoping that I will be able to contribute a little bit to that. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. Did we have any online comments? Did we receive any? No. No online public comments. All right. With that, no, Mr. Chair. Oh, no, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thanks. All right. With that, I'll close the public comments if there are no others. All right. So our discussion um action items today, our first one is the new community development director intro. All right. Well, uh good evening again, planning commission and council member. Uh welcome to our first meeting of 2026. Uh, of course, thank you for volunteering your time, your experience uh to supporting the council in in their leg uh legislative work. Uh, first of all, it's my privilege to serve as your new community development director uh also to support the planning commission as one of your staff liaison uh and also in fulfilling the work program and duties of both the planning commission and the department. So, I just wanted to take a few minutes and you can see I've uh timed us out accordingly on the agenda uh to start off the year of 2026 with an overview of the community development department, the work that we'll be doing together as the planning commission and the department and also touching a little bit on our roles and responsibilities as well. Um you'll see from the brief intro agenda that I have built in time at the end for your questions. So, what I thought we could do is potentially save questions till until the end of the presentation. I'll write them all down and then sort of predicate it on time, we'll answer as many as we can in the meeting. And obviously, if there's any that we don't get to this evening and again, this is just for the intro part, not the rest of the agenda, happy to follow up in email or in another meeting. So, again, my name is Stacy Pratcher, your new uh community development director as of late December of 2025. I'm joined by staff member Cat Kac, your senior planner, um, who's also uh, focused on long range planning. Tim, whose last name I don't know yet. I'm really sorry about that. And then [laughter] also, well, I know that's okay. That's it. Now, we've got to do our own it. And

then, of course, welcome to members of the public who are here this evening with us as well. Uh, so you can see from the agenda, um, new staff and hirings. You can see there's a few positions that we've needed to fill. So for many months uh the department with the balance of those open positions listed has been operating with essentially a 40% reduction uh in its staff. We're a small department. We have a big work program. So uh as of today we have filled the development services director position and also the associate planner position. We both started at about the same time. We are still working to fill the administrative assistant position. That was Sarah Sarah's position previously if you remember her. and then also the code enforcement officer position which was Ray's position if you um if you remember him previously. So, uh that is one of my first priorities is to uh make the department whole again. Um right now we are triaging those two open positions and [gasps] not ideal. And so you'll see that we are focused on filling that now along with the staff positions. We're also focused on filling those volunteer positions as well. You'll see on the city's website that the council and the mayor, they've put very prominently on the website that we're looking for volunteers. You see some empty seats up there on the dis. Uh and so we are committed to getting people to uh volunteer their time and energy just like you have uh to supporting the city council and advisory board and commission roles. All right. So, I'm going to ask Tim to bring up a visual here. And this is also included in your packet. And this is the community development department's work program for 2026. So, you're probably familiar at this point that each of the departments within the city, whether we're public works, police, fire, whoever we are, we present a work program to city council during the council's annual retreat. And that was held earlier this year. And what's being provided to you in the

packet is the department's finalized work program. So mayor and council, they're the CEOs. They establish the vision and overall policy guidance. They approve our work programs and then we implement them. We establish priorities and then we report on metrics on a monthly basis uh to make sure that we can budget and then plan and prioritize accordingly to make sure that these get implemented. So you'll notice on that work program um and it covers pretty evenly the balance of uh permitting actions and long range planning code enforcement that really make up typically a community development department. You'll notice on the work program that I've highlight highlighted uh what the planning commission's work program where that nexus is going to be with us will be in 2026 and that's going to be u making advisory recommendations to city council concerning the periodic update of the comprehensive plan and then also starting some very initial scoping of code amendments to implement that plan. So, we're going to work on some lofty goals and policies, uh, mostly statemandated over this next year and then going into 2027, we're going to start start working on the code that is going to implement those goals and policies. I know you've done a lot of work on that already over this past year with CAC to implement missing middle housing. You had mentioned climate action and resiliency. That's a new element in comprehensive plans. This year we're working on transportation and utilities this year, etc. So, getting our goals and plans established this year and then doing implementation visav codes next year. Um, I know we also have some folks that maybe are somewhat maybe new to to commissions, maybe a little bit new to Robert's rules. You know, I wasn't entirely sure everyone's comfort with that. Um, I know I always need a refresh on uh the RCWs. I don't memorize anything at this point. Just always think you should go straight to the code. Um, so I've cited both the state

legislation that authorizes what are the roles and responsibilities of planning commissions and then of course how Oak Harbor locally implements those roles and responsibilities. And then in summary, just in case you needed it, I went ahead and provided just a nice quick little cheat sheet to how we make motions in our meetings pursuant to Robert's rules. And those rules are what we use for parliamentary procedure within the city. Uh so in summary, busy year ahead of us, comp plan, comp plan, comp plan, and comp plan all about housing, housing, housing, and climate resiliency. Um so I would be happy at this point. point. I know I read uh through that very quickly, but if there's kind of any questions that come up that that I can answer about the work program or what the department's doing over this next year or the priorities sort of in my first kind of 60 90 days, I'd be happy to answer any questions at this point.

Anybody have questions? I will. Thank you. Not not at the moment, but I will definitely have questions. Okay, great. Thank you. I'm excited about the code enforcement officer. Not I mean, Ray did a wonderful job. I'm glad to see the code enforcement officer going from a part very part-time. I think it was about 15 hours to full-time. Yes. Which will focus a little more proactive than reactive, which is how we've often been is reactive. But I did notice that the job isn't even on the website to be posted. Do we basically have somebody or why don't we have it on the website as a job opening? We have conducted interviews. So that Yes, we are in process. So we're getting close then.

Yes. Yes, we're getting close. Thank you. Appreciate it. Sorry I'm late all. Hi commissioner. Thanks for joining us. Um any any other questions, comments? All right. All right. Thank you. Thank Thank you so very much. My pleasure. Thank you. All right, the next item. Hang on just one moment, please. Do we do the next item?

All right. Next item is selection of a chair and a vice chair for the city planning commission. So we'll start with the selection of a chair. Do we have any nominations for the chair [snorts] or self-nominations? For chair, I would nominate Ryan Bradley.

I second the nomination. All right. So, the nomination for chair is for Ryan Bradley and it's been seconded. Um, all in favor? Oh. Oh. Any any discussion about it? Discussions. Nope. Um, all right. With that, uh, all in favor? I I I opposed. Nay. All right. Well, thank you very much. I'll I'll do the best I can. Um, congratulations.

This is the first time I've been a chair of the planning commission, so yeah. Yeah. Appreciate the vote of confidence. All right. So, now we need a vice chair. Do I have any nominations or self-nominations? Um, I'll I'll nominate myself. I'll second that. Jeff Ward. Thank you. All right. So, we have um a nomination of Jeff Ward as vice chair. Um any discussion? No. All in favor? I I [clears throat]

opposed. All right. Congratulations. Jeff Ward is vice chair. That passes. All right. The next item on our discussion agenda is the countywide planning policy amendments and that'll be Came. Good evening. Um Kakmack, principal planner, u here to present the countywide planning policies. Um good evening and welcome. Um there's a lot of new members here, a lot of new people here. Everybody's doing great. Um so um we do have some missing pieces. Uh as Stacy mentioned in our department, we're working through them. Um it'll be uh once we have uh everybody on board, we'll be uh able to run a little more smoothly. But um at this time, we're just transitioning a lot of new members in the planning commission, a lot of new uh staff at the planning department. So uh just and and it's a busy time of the year. You've come um right at the time when the comp plan activities is starting back up again. And so, um, since we have a lot of new, just making sure that

is is that on Jeff? No, it says he's muted. I mean, he's muted. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. [clears throat]

Um so since we have um a lot of new members here I will try my best to try and provide historical information or the background information that um got us to where we are. Uh, so if you have any questions, feel free. Um, if you um um have more questions than than what our topic is for tonight, feel free to contact us uh um at the planning department. We're happy to bring you up to speed and share with you the information and try and answer as much questions as you as we can. So, uh with that, I will jump in. So, countywide planning policies, uh, what are they and what are they supposed to do for the city? So, I'll start there before we jump into it. So, the state, um, in in Washington, we're a growth management state. So, the state requires the city to, uh, city and the counties to, uh, um, plan for growth. They uh the office of financial management from the state um usually uh is the one that assigns population projections for all counties. The counties are then um uh allowed to choose between three ranges, low, medium, and high. You can choose any other number in between if you'd like. Um but they give you the range and that's the range that we uh as a county have to uh a county and a city have to take those numbers and then we have to find a way to plan for those. So that's kind of the framework uh under which we operate. So in order for all of the jurisdictions in a county to work cooperatively the state requires that you do countywide planning policies because they want everybody to be consistent. when they say Island County is going to grow to a by a population of X amount, let's say 100,000, just uh to throw some numbers out there where we're

80,000, Coupeville, Langley, Oak Harbor, and the county all have to decide how we're going to plan for that extra 20,000 over the next 20 years. And so we have to come to an agreement. And that's what the countywide planning policies do is to kind of bring that framework so that everybody can kind of do their planning consistently. So the countywide planning policies were uh we've had countywide planning policies since we've had comprehensive planning in Ocarber. So since 2019 we've had countywide planning policies and they get amended uh with every update because the state requires new rules and new things. You know we were dealing with population till 2016. Now it's housing units and population. So as we get in go in the future there'll be more and more requirements and these countywide planning policies are the document by which the county city and everybody shares information and tries to be consistent. So that's what uh this document is about. So the in order to do the um update the 2025 update we're doing right now um the county adopted their policies in March of 24. So every jurisdiction has a year or two to kind of work through the comp plan uh updates and um so that is sets the framework that's the uh they set the uh methodology by which we do our planning and so that was in place and that's this is the document that we used to um do our comprehensive plan this year the framework. So I have a small presentation. I'll walk through the things that we did and then I'll walk through the amendments and the changes um that are being proposed at this time. So they were as I mentioned the

countywide planning policies were adopted in March. The um addition to um this uh update was the HAP tool. It's called the housing for all uh income um planning housing housing for all planning tool I think is what the hapt is and basically what it is is it's saying you you cannot just in the past they would say oh carba has to you know plan for 2,000 or 3,000 more population and we would just do it uh by uh assessing our buildable lands and and accom accommodating the population. Now they have come the state has said you have to not only account for population but you have to account for housing at all income levels. So you can't just say well yes we can generate 2,000 more housing units. They are saying you have to generate very specifically this many affordable like you know below 0 to 80 income level units this many 0 to 30 80 to 120 you know you get the idea. the ratios are divided. And so this HAP tool, when you put in the number, let's say, OK cover is assigned 2,000 units to plan for. When you put that number in this tool, it splits up all the income levels and tells you how many units for each income level that your jurisdiction needs to plan for. So that is the tool that was added in 2024. And the countywide planning policies also looked at which um population projection we should plan for. So there was a low, medium, and high. And our general policy is to select the medium, shoot for the middle, and that's what we did in 2024. We shot for the middle. We took the numbers there. And so um in order to do this 2025 update, Commerce had grants um to update the plan. So the

city applied for grants. We were successful in getting those grants and we hired consultant Kimley Horn to help us with this update. Uh just because of the technicality that was involved in it and the um uh the documents that we need to produce need to be provided to the state and the county and we needed all of these to just uh be consistent and aligned with the policies. So we hired consultants and they did the lands capacity analysis. The countywide planning policies if you read the document has a very detailed description of how you should calculate residential in low density areas in multif family areas in commercial areas. So the city did all of the calculations and determined that based on the methodology and based on our current regulations that the city has an approximate capacity for about 2474 units far away from the 55 33 units that was assigned to Oak Harbor. So the state then says well if you cannot accommodate all of your growth assigned growth then you have to look at your land use map. You have to make some changes to your land use map. You also have to consider some development regulation changes in order to accommodate this growth. So that's what our consultants did. They looked at land use options and they provided two memos which I think I attached to uh the report. it's in there. So, they did the land use options and generated another capacity, you know, reszoning areas, increasing heights, increasing um um um floor area ratios, etc., and you come up to 3735 units. So um in so in in in this

entire uh discussion it was determined that the city limits can accommodate you know about 3,700 units. That's what the methodology allows us to accommodate, you know, and so when we started discussing with the county in terms of what should be done with the remaining units that we we haven't accommodated because that's normally accommodated in the county or you have to expand the UG in order to accommodate those units. And in that discussion, we determined that there was not adequate time to um to discuss how to do that because our UG has a lot of developed areas and um de these developed areas are they they're already developed as low low density residential. They're in the county. The county does not have services and only if they can come into the city can they be served and with a higher density and this is not possible to do within a an update when you're doing all the statemandated climate resiliency update to go into a discussion with the county in terms of how you're going to support infrastructure for already built environments. That's a it's a long discussion and it cannot fit it in. So what the county decided was, okay, there's no infrastructure right now. We can't serve them. The city cannot extend sewer into the county to serve these properties. The county does not have a methodology to extend sewer or pay for it. So we do need to study it jointly. We realize that we're not going to be able to do that this time. So what the county is basically doing is okay, let's reduce our population. And there's a clause in in the state law that says if you don't have capital improvement facilities for your development, then you need to cut back on your growth um um allocations. And that's what the

county is doing. It's like, okay, we don't have the time to plan for the 1541. It's because of the lack of infrastructure and capital improvements. Therefore, we should do a study of this. And so, let's plan for a lower population count. And so they are basically reducing the population that island county needs to plan for and very specifically they're reducing the counts for Oak Harbor. So that's what this countywide planning policy is doing. So we started off planning for 5500 units. Now we kind of reduced it down to about 3900 units. One of the things that the came out of the discussion was well if we cannot plan for the already developed areas in the UG then maybe the undeveloped portions of the UG should be in the city because you want urban density and so that's one of the things that they u uh that the city and the county decided on is that we should immediately annex properties that are in the county underdeveloped in the UG not just in the county in the UG into the city uh because they are intended to come into the city at some point and bring them in and we can start planning for them. So, we do have um work that we're doing with the county uh a joint meeting in March where we're looking at annexing about 80 acres of property within the UG into the city so that we can start planning for that. So in o in in in our discussions in trying to accommodate these 1500 units that were remaining we have come up with some sort of a plan annexation. Let's annex 80 acres. Let's uh amend the CPP so that everybody else can move on. Langley and Coupeville and the county can move on with their comp plan. We don't want to hold everybody up just because of this.

So let's amend it. amend the population and um um see if we can enter into a in a local agreement to plan for these UGAS. We should and I think the county is uh uh cognizant of that is that we do need to have a plan in place because the perspectives that the county brings for these areas and the perspective that the city brings are different and without a proper planning and a document in place that captures our common understanding of what we want to achieve. uh we will be struggling to provide services for these people for these uh residents um that uh you know at some point will need to come into the city. So that is the kind of story behind why these amendments are being suggested. Normally a county won't amend these policies once you set them in place. All the jurisdictions are planning until the next update you normally don't have to amend them. But since we had these challenges that came up the and the county is trying to complete their comprehensive plan uh changes they have suggested amending these these policies. So the process for amending the policies is usually the county adopts them the amended policies and then the rest of the jurisdictions all have to ratify them. At least two will have to ratify them. If none of the jurisdictions ratify, then the county have to revert back to the old countywide planning policies. So that's the kind of process. So currently what we're going through [clears throat] is the amendment. So we're asking the planning commission to look at it. The I wanted to just kind of show you I have a couple maps if you're wondering uh about the areas that we're talking about. So when I talk about the developed areas, these are the areas that are islands that are fully

developed. They're in the UG but um you know within the uh city Okabover's UG and these are the difficult challenging areas uh where you have septic systems some septic systems may be failing faster than others. Uh so some pe some residents may have incentive to annex into the city faster than others and so it's just timing and opportunity is very challenging here to try and annex all these properties and serve them. So that's why this amendment is being proposed at this time to kind of say let's look at we need a deeper dive into this area. We need to study this. We need to look at this and determine that. So those are the uh those are the areas that uh we talk about when we talk about the um a future study of developed areas. The property that we want to annex um the 80 acres is mostly underdeveloped properties on the south side uh right by the highway uh also uh southwest 24th. There's some property there that's undeveloped and then there's some undeveloped property over here. Those are the properties and I have a better map here. These are the properties that the city and the county are working on trying to annex from the county into the city. And so this is uh for reference this is the highway uh southwest 24th and your Fort Nent Boulevard. So these are the 80 acres. So um this is the uh um current situation. technically um you know uh the the county has u uh uh approved this amendment and they're waiting for the for the jurisdictions to ratify them. So here we are. Um I've given you all the technical information and the reasons why they're changing. Um and as as far as staff goes, since the planning

process is moving ahead and since we have annexations and uh that are uh being considered right now, we think that the ball is rolling in a forward direction. So we think that this is an okay thing to consider at this time. Um but this is it's just going through the public review at this time and uh US planning commission the first bodies to kind of take a look at it. Um and so if you have any questions or thoughts on it, please share it with us. Uh we'll be happy to answer questions. But what we're hoping u today is that the planning commission would make a recommendation if you feel comfortable uh with these changes uh to the city council on whether you want them to consider this change or do you not want to consider them to consider the change. That's the kind of question in front of you. Um and um if if you need additional time, the what we are thinking about doing is after your meeting or for your deliberation tonight, uh this uh agenda item would go to uh the first workshop to city council in March and likely uh have an action at the second meeting uh or or the workshop meeting in March. That's our kind of timeline for when we'll take it to city council. So, we have time till March. So, if the planning commission is not comfortable today with um the information that's in here, we'll be happy to bring the item back. But if you're feeling comfortable and want to make a recommendation, we'll take a recommendation at this time as well. So, with that, I'll turn it over back to the commission for questions, thoughts, and um any Yeah.

All right. [clears throat] Thank you, Jack. Does anybody have any questions, comments. I have uh a question or two. Okay, go ahead, Jeff.

Sure. [laughter] Uh Jack, thank you for uh the overview. Um just to first, I want to make sure that I I understand the exact amendments to the um CPP that we're considering. Looking inside the packet, um I I I see that the general provision section 31 um is primarily being amended on section 31.2 and 31.3. That's what we're talking about right here is the the red line and the new blue text there. Or is there somewhere else specifically um that we're also discussing for amendments to to review? Yeah, the [clears throat] I think the packet has the red line version of the countywide planning policies. That's the version the approved version of the countywide planning policies.

Okay. So, very specifically just it might help to if if you don't mind me reading these out so others can can hear and we can hear the the the original and the change text. It should only take a second then. So the general provisions clause section 2 originally had housing units and municipal UGAS will be attributed to the municip municipality not the county. Um and the second was uh the count the next bullet was the county shall be responsible for regulating land use and development activities within unincorporated portions of UG. However, the county must coordinate with associated municipalities to ensure that any new uses authorized by a county permit or development regulation are consistent with the municipalities planning goals and policy as well as any applicable CPPs. And then these two are then changed to strike out very noticeably on 31.2 to I suppose saying housing units in municipal un uh municipal UGS will be attributed to the municipality and now those uh housing units and unincorporated UGS will be counted as part of the county housing allocation. So it's switching from the municipality um to the county, right? Am I reading that right? Like the the gist of number two is it's it's switching the the uh the population in the UG from being held for the municipality i.e. Okarbor to the county. Is that the right way of reading that? So [cough] when the original allocation was done, it was

done to Oak Harbor's UG and so that was what has caused the greyness in the countywide planning policies because the Okar's UG consists of both city limits and unincorporated UG which is the county's responsibility. So I think this just clarifies that when numbers are assigned to a UG both the city and the county have responsibility in dealing with the numbers. So I think that's what this that statement just clarifies that it's assigned to the city and then what's left over is assigned to the county.

Okay. Um, so that's where I'm I'm confused because it sounds like this is saying the that the the change is now to say very clearly it's being assigned to the county and that I guess gives the justification for removing the extra allocation from O Harbor because the uh expansion that would have gone into the UG to account for that numbers. Now the county is saying we're going to take that um take those numbers and because we are the these are being counted as part of the county according to their CPP that's an okay thing to do the switch on like this this line this change from saying municipality to county is now what actually effectively authorizes them to or justifies them changing those numbers around. Right.

You got it.

Okay. Um, and so I I'd like to understand our position because I I know I've heard at various meetings um, you know, city council members have gotten have clearly shown a view and opinion on this. Um, and I'd like to understand bas the staff technical assessment. Does this sound like it's good for Oak Harbor? And also um if council member Stucky would love I'd love to hear if if the council as a whole thinks that this is good for Oak Harbor or if we we have any hesitation or reason that we might want to consider pushing back on this.

I can I'll answer the first part of the question and then we'll allow um council member Stucky to um chat anything about from the council perspective. So in terms of how it affects o cover so the once the planning number the housing unit number is set for the city that's we can do our comprehensive plan right so we we can go ahead and and complete our comprehensive plan so uh whe the county removing their numbers does not um hinder our ability to plan for the city limit That's so I want to make that clear. So the the areas in the UG and the UG line itself, the boundary itself is the county's responsibility to to move and draw there. They are the ones that are authorized to do it. The city does not have other than our input. We don't have the authority to change that line. Right? So what's outside of the city limits is the county's responsibility. what's inside the city is the city's responsibility and with GMA and all of these allocations and how growth is being planned that separation is becoming more and more in terms of responsibility. So only through countywide planning policies and agreements can we actually work with the county to achieve something common here. So to answer the first part of the question, this change that they're doing in order to reduce the number does not impact Oak Harbor's uh effort to plan. Now whether the removal of these numbers impacts Island County as a whole from a population and planning standpoint, that's a different question that Oak Harbor is not the only one that's in a

position to answer that question. So, um, anyway, I just want to say that it does not impact OKAR's planning. Um, I want to be clear on that. But in terms of politically or any other way we want to address this, that's it's a different question. Can definitely tell Commissioner Ward comes from an engineer background. I do not mean that as an insult. I I appreciate that and it'll make for an interesting challenge as we work together going forward. [gasps]

Um, I will say we touched on this briefly. Council has seen this map. Uh, it was a prior meeting, though it was brief. Would you mind going back to it? Can we go back to that map? So, the comp plan and in in my opinion is it's a little tricky because we've been working out for so long. We've had different council members come and go and it's it's a lot to wrap our minds around. When I when I think of the population projections, um I remember when we first vote on that in 24 and there were two people who thought it was too high. I I'll be honest, I was one of them. The others kind of were, "Yeah, let's let's do that." As we've gone through this process, um trying to to figure out what is realistic, I mean, could you say, "Sure, let's build a 500tory building and get our population projection." Sure, but like is it is it practical? Right. So, when we were showed this map briefly, I don't feel like the council had any strong objections to it. I think we understand we need to exp I mean, you look at a map, we're bursting at the seams. We need to expand and I think this is a good expansion. We could we could get over the subjectiveness of where is it going to be, how much is going to be, and those are those ongoing conversations. We are having a meeting with the county next month, I believe March 19th to to kind of talk about with them. So, I can't give you a firm this is how the council is feeling. I can tell you I I think that this is probably a good direction and I can tell you at the time that it was brought up, there wasn't any huge objections. is the wiggle room and this was a little with me is just with the parts that are being annexed. My concern was the the property owners getting a notification because as I understand the entities get notification like north would be fire gets notification. Um but do the property owners get the not because they

don't really get a say in this other than public comment. Correct. I mean, we we don't So, I know myself and one other council member had that uh consideration, but there wasn't any firm opposition to going in this direction that I could tell.

Uh thank you for that insight. Um you know, um this commission's job is to try to to inform the council as much as we can with um you know, what insights we come up with. So, it's good to understand the council's thinking as much as possible and we're thinking about how to to process this. Um, I'm still I'm still honestly trying to understand the mechanics so I can, you know, form my own opinion uh of this uh CAC kind of a followup to this to help just get the real mechanics. So, this annexation um and forgive me if you said this and clarified this already. um this annexation actually does is sort of baked into the numbers that we're expected to grow and be able to handle. Is this sort of like the that this annexation is is the compromise that says we took out some, we're taking responsibility for some. That's the county's view. Um and with this annexation, the remainder is now covered. We believe that you can come up with an adequate plan. Um, is is that what I hear and see and is that from a just quick seems like it it is something that we'd be able to cover and plan for with the given numbers in this level of annexation or do we see some problems or am I misunderstanding this this a portion then? So [cough and clears throat] the the way the numbers work is a little tricky for our purpose and at this for for the time that we're considering it. So for the properties that we're annexing, the city is unable because it's not in the city to plan for it because we cannot assign

zoning and we cannot assign density till it's in the city. Okay. So that's just something that we cannot do because um only after it comes into the city, you go through a public process and you adopt plans and so on are you able to determine what zoning and so on. So it's a process. So what the county has done is the county has done a buildable lands analysis for all the properties in the UG because it's it's in their under their jurisdiction. It's under their zoning. It's under their regulations. So they are supposed to consider what is the capacity for all of the properties in the in the UG. So the county has assigned a certain number of units to these annex territory, these annexable lands. So that's the number that we will be using as if we annex into the city, that's the number that we'll at least shoot for. Now that number is probably low because it's calculated with county zoning and county um uh regulations and so on. So when that property comes into the city and we go through our comprehensive planning process, only then will we be able to determine what zoning and how much capacity can we have in it. So we won't be able to do that till we get that in. So till then we use the county numbers to um to do that. So that's so if you look at the I think it's at on page 38 is the main crux of the most of the changes. So most of the changes that you see in the countywide planning policies are just to clarify their their position in order to make this change. So what you're looking at all of these minor changes are just saying okay we're shifting the numbers we're separating them therefore the county can reduce the population. So

most of the changes that you want to see number-wise I think is on I think it's page 38 of the agreement um where in the appendix they talk about all the numbers they talk about the annexation numbers and so for if the annexation doesn't go through then we'll be short 290ome units and we'll have to find a way to accommodate in the city which I think we can uh for that number if we need to.

So if I'm hearing you right, they base these numbers without this annex in mind. So it sounds like that the numbers change is slightly different a different topic than the annexation itself. If the numbers aren't based off the idea that this annex is part of how those numbers were aortioned. Is that correct?

The annexation numbers are based on county numbers, not city numbers. Is that what the question was? I'm sorry. I'm so I'm I'm just I'm sorry. I think I haven't been clear. So the we we have a certain we we started off with a certain number of anticipated population growth and the back and forth led to a reduction of population growth. um number um and the county in these changes basically said the reduction um is is kosher so to speak because we're going to take responsibility for numbers inside the UG and therefore we can we can reduce your expected population growth because we were assuming it was going to go into the UG and now since we're taking control of it you don't have to think about it but we were left with a new set of numbers um that was reduced and this concept of this this expansion is now in front of that new reduced number is still potentially a high number. Um, you know, the the planning, you know, shows that we're on the edge according to the documents I believe that are in the packet. Um, but we have this potential annexation which would give us new land um with new capacity and I understand that the numbers associated with annexation um are based off of county density projections and all that stuff. So my question is that number that we were left with um as part of the county's kind of like reduction draw down is that accounting for us with that annexation or was the were those numbers taken completely not considering the annexation idea as a whole? So we've been given this 5,000 some odd number and when they gave it to us they they weren't saying that's without considering this annexation or they're saying this is the the number with that annexation is sort of there. So in that case, if it was with the annexation and the annexation didn't go through, then essentially our population growth would

be a little bit lower because we didn't get the the part where we would grow it. That makes sense.

I Yes, I I think so. I so if if the whether the annexation goes through or not I think our population is going to be reduced at least what we need to be plan planning for is going to be reduced with or without the annexation. So without the annexation, I think the numbers have dropped down to I want to say 3,700 units. And with the annexation, I want to say it's 3,900 units. But nevertheless, the entire population is being reduced for Island County to 99,000 about 3,000 or so u people I think. So the the idea is to not try and account for the 1,500 units that is being discounted. That's not the idea. We're not trying to account for that with the annexation. Okay. Um I I do have more questions. Uh although I I think I'm I'm monopolizing everything. This is a super important thing that I I just really want to make sure that we we do fully understand before we you make a decision on whether we we think we know enough to to make a motion today or whether we have to push it off. So, trying to dig in deep on this. Um reading through some of the memos and getting through the discussion about why those numbers had this back and forth and change was because we were unable to provide a capital facilities plan. you said due to timelines and and such. Um and uh you know many of the changes have to do with um being unable to make create a capital facility plan etc etc. Is this something that we should be considering starting a capital facilities plan for future UG?

Um, or, you know, or is this not something we should think about at all just to avoid sort of this back and forth in the future? Well, I guess it' be 10 years in the future. But, um, it seems like the the capital facilities plan for expanding the UG is is was a sticking point. I was just wondering where that's at. Yeah, I think that's the idea with the study. So only with a joint study can you come up with sort of a joint capital improvements plan. So the the current expectation is that the c from the county at least the city will come up with the capital improvements plan and the expectation from the city is that the county will come up with the capital improvements plan because they're in the county. So you know we have to study it jointly in order to come up with that. So we can't we can't start working on it till we start to study the area try to determine what the challenges are and what is the best way to tackle them and how do you find solutions. So um so and we have to do it jointly because we have to agree on what the end result is going to be. So um that is what is being proposed um uh to be done before the next update.

Okay. Um and I guess strategically thinking towards the future and this is again more of a um how is the council thinking um question when we are thinking about the UG and the long-term future of the UG especially when development is happening by the county in the UG um there's a lot to think about about why we would want to annex sooner versus later and things of that nature. And it would help me to kind of understand the problem and you know potentially you know build up some some good objective advice for the council to understand what the council's re thoughts are on are we aggressively trying to get that because the county is building in what we expect to eventually be the city and we'd want to control it before they they lay an imprint on it or are we looking to to to lay back um and and you know be you know delayed in in in uh getting into UG what would what's the kind of the council's strategic thoughts on the UG and how we would want to strategically you know consider the timelines for it. I think the difficulty with that question is maybe in the timing of it because I feel like for me I'd be a lot better able to answer that after the joint meeting with the county next month. Um if I were to give you an assumption now I think there'd be heavy on assumption and I don't want to speak for the whole council in that regard. So I think that would be a better conversation because it was been a long time since we had a joint meeting with the county. We had one probably about a year year and a half ago. We had another one that was cancelled. So, I think that's kind of what would be a little more after that meeting. I'd be better

able to answer that question after the 19th. Totally understand that. Thank you for that. Um my my final question uh K is in general um how can the planning commission get involved in the market meeting? What's kind of the expectation there? I know that's not specifically towards getting to whether we would make this motion or not today, but it'd be uh be nice to hear, you know, what we could do or what would be good for us to do, what we could do, that kind of stuff.

Can you repeat the question? Good for the planning commission. What? Can you rephrase that question so I can answer what it is that you like? Sorry, my my public speaking is rusty. I got to work on this and and be very clear and I'm sorry about that. Uh the meeting in March um this joint meeting, is there any expectation of the um planning, you know, a carpet planning commission um joining in on that um or or even just sitting in to listen um or not? Um and would it is it something that would be helpful? Um good.

Yeah, good question. Sorry, I didn't know the reference to the to the joint meeting. So joint meeting is for annexation. Annexations are for generally transfer of property from county to city, right? So the planning commission is normally not involved in any annexation process. So, uh, we don't bring annexations to, uh, the planning commission because there's no real land use decision other than the fact that it's being transferred from the county to the city and you can only transfer it from the county to the city if it's in the UG. That's it. So, if it's already in the UG, it can come into the city and that's all we're doing. So, now annexations as a topic is a big topic. Uh, there are many, many, many ways to annex. um at least there's more than five ways that I know that you can annex territory. Usually and normally the way annexation is done is by property owner initiations. They come and they petition to be in the city. Usually they want to develop their property. They want sewer connections, water connections. And so the city's general policy has been that um we um give the applicant the the choice uh when they're ready to come into the city. uh development um uh when they're development ready, they'll come into the city. So, there's a there's a choice. Uh there's a there's a process for that. There's a process for um bringing in islands. There's a there's a process to um uh do inner jurisdictional transfers. There's two or three ways to do that. So there's many ways that uh annexation can be done and a city can choose any method that u fits their policy. So I think one of the questions you were asking is strategically you know is it is it beneficial for the city to go ahead and try and annex all the territory into the city or should we

wait and bring it in slowly. I think the idea with this uh particular update is that we want to annex as much as possible in one swoop so that we can try and accommodate and plan for the housing because planning for housing in the county is going to be slow. It's going to be delayed and for the amount of housing that is needed and we need to plan for we need all the options we can. So that's why this particular method was chosen for uh this annexation. It's just an interjurisdictional transfer between county and city. It's done through an agreement. And to u bring up uh council member Stucky's point on noticing the property owners, I just want to kind of touch on that. the the process uh that uh of this interlocal agreement transfer of land between county and the city just involves taxing districts does not involve the actual property owners because there are different processes where property owners can get involved. So that's why I'm saying there's many methodologies but this is the method that seems to be appropriate for this particular time in in in terms of the update that we're doing. So this process does not require us to notify the property owners. However, I think the city and I think we mentioned this to the planning commission and the city council and the county commissioners that we are sending letters to the property owners and letting them know that this is happening at least the public hearing is happening. Now this is not a notice. This is mainly FYI type thing. So we won't call it a notice because notice is something that you give to a person that directly you know they have some say in that matter. This one they you can take public comments public hearing but in this particular process it's built for jurisdictions to

transfer land between each other without having to um u u deal with the land use challenges that may be there because you know the overall public interest is protected because you're planning for the whole city and you're trying to plan for housing as a general. And so that's kind of what this this particular U March 19th meeting is for. So this March 19th meeting is in a local agreement. They'll hold the public hearing and at the meeting um they'll make a decision to sign the interlocal agreement if if if they're all in agreement with it. and there's potentially possible that the city council will have to adopt an ordinance to actually annex that property in. So there's two actions that potentially can happen. So as planning commissioners, you can attend the meeting, you can provide your comments, but this that matter usually doesn't come to planning commission as a recommendation. It's not a process where the planning commission is involved.

So KC, thank you so much for that that explanation. And I think I wanted to ask maybe a couple clarifying questions that would get to maybe your question, Commissioner Ward, about the involvement of the planning commission. I I think you made a really clarifying statement there, which is that the planning department's making a recommendation that we um that we really pursue annexations during this particular periodic update. So within the comprehensive plan, um we will have goals and policies currently related to annexation, how we do them, when we do them. Can you confirm that for me? Yes, we do have annexation policies.

Okay, great. And as part of the work that the planning commission is doing, would it be timely for the department to present proposed updates, red lines to those annexation policies that sum up what you're talking about that through this update? Yes, we would like to more aggressively pursue those annexations considering the kind of growth that we're anticipating. We we can I think some of those policies are in front of us for discussion at the

next. So so that's what I would en encourage Commissioner Ward is that's that that's the fundamental way that the planning commission can be evolved is by recommending to city council. Hey, we're you know and again the planning commission of course free to make its own analysis and and judgment and recommendation that there are changes that we want to make to the annexation goals and policies within the comp plan um to pursue on a certain timeline to grow in certain areas etc. Thank you. Excellent. Um, okay. Oh, I think I saw C council member Stucky.

I think from a council perspective, one thing that might be helpful, I mean, I do get the impression that this is something that council wants. So, while it's nice to have recommendations, to be blunt, I could see the council pursuing this regardless of the recommendation. But what would probably be helpful is our job is to take a little more of a deep dive into things. And one thing that has been a I wouldn't say complaint, but often times for me on council, we'll bring up something like this and the the planning commission's involvement is and I'm just being honest here is reduced to and it was by went by the planning commission. There were no objections. That doesn't help me a ton. What does help me is listening to the specific issues that may come up. And even if that's just summarized in a packet something so that we can see your guys comments of your concerns like I said on this I mean regardless what we do I I think the council is probably going to try to pursue it but it would be helpful to at least log the concerns that we have so these could be brought up in something like this meeting because this meeting while it is about the annex you're right there is kind of overtones on the UG it is kind of all connected in a way and so getting the concerns positive or negative would be helpful for us to to hear that feedback as opposed to just a simple recommendation yes or no.

I really appreciate that council member Stucky. I think one of the ways that we can accomplish that is um I mean one example I've used before I think I've talked about it briefly with CAC is by developing a recorded motion that would be signed by the chair and then forwarded as the recommendation to city council and that would have a series of findings of fact and so exactly what you're describing a summary of the discussion whether for or against recommendations etc. And so it's beyond a simple yes or no. That would be that would be helpful because that's give it a try.

In the past that's it's often just been and it was run by the planning commission. There were no objections and there may that meant there been all the discussion but seeing those comments. Some of us do watch these meetings. Some of us don't. But most of us do read the packet or we should be reading the packet. And so to have those concerns on there may give us some ideas that we may have not have thought about. Thank you. That's um that's great insight. Um I think that also gets into the comprehensive master plan and trying to outline goals and policies that help inform what could go into a packet like that. Um I I do have uh kind of uh one two two things. Again, I'm I'm I'm monopolizing here and I'm truly sorry about this. Um the the discussion of whether we should make a motion or not um would be around a recommendation to the city council to um uh uh to approve this city the the CPP changes and that would unblock the the county at least from Mo Harbor's point of view. if they have to get other municipalities to say yes if the city council said yes on it and allow this to move forward and hopefully unblock other planning efforts and things along those lines. So there's a timeline that matters here. Um and uh so I just want to be clear that if we were to make a motion today, it would it does or does not include the annexation. it. I I am a little conf little confused if those are part of that or if the text that we are saying go for is just the red line and blues that are inside the uh CPP inside of the packet. So if we were to say make a motion, it's it's another motion that also includes the annexation change. It's just a motion

that says all the red lines and blues and the population changes um and not also the annexation bit. Right. That's correct. you're taking action only on the countywide planning policies and not on anything else. Okay. And do you have a sample text for what the the motion you would expect um for the the commission to to adopt if we were ready?

I Yes, I do have a couple motions on the screen uh when the commission is ready. I believe Commissioner Bachan had a question or a comment.

Thank you, Chair. Um, while while we've got that pulled up, I'd like to ask obviously the timeline is short and we'd like to move on this. It's generally going to be a good idea for everyone to be on board with this at the same time. But what I haven't heard is what would be the detriment of not acting tonight because we do have another meeting before the county and city council meet together. So could you tell me if there is any detrimental action or obstacle that comes up for not acting tonight? [clears throat]

If you don't act tonight, we'll probably have it on the next planning commission meeting which will be the March 10th and that will also be before the annexation actually occurs. Um, so, um, I don't think it's detrimental to the timeline. However, it's probably the county wanting to the the moment the countywide planning policies are approved or ratified by all the jurisdictions, then the county can start to move on their final adoption of their comprehensive plan, which is what they're waiting for. So if for some reason this doesn't get approved or doesn't get ratified then it goes back to the old clauses which then we're back to the drawing board in terms of you know how to do all of our updates basically.

Thank you. I appreciate that. So, so in kind of summary, I agree with uh council member Stucky like the city of Oak Harbor is busting at the seams. We we need to get bigger at some point. Kind of to your process or thought was that if you try to annex something that's already been developed, it's more difficult because the the homes are established. They have their own septic. They don't need they have their own wells. They don't need our services. and trying to incorporate that into onesie twoosies is difficult. So kind of undeveloped area makes more sense. Seems like the longer you would wait to annex undeveloped areas in the UG, the greater the chances of them being developed. And if we wait another month for to make a motion or whatever, it's it's not a detriment. It just kind of slows everything down a little bit by a month. Is that correct?

That's correct. All right. That's all that I have. I wanted to comment that while I actually feel like I have a really good comprehension of what's been explained and what's in the documents um because I'm a policy nerd myself, um I I don't know that I feel like the entire commission is um understanding everything that needs to be understood to move forward on the on the motion. Um, so I would I would like to hear from everybody else how they feel about that.

I was I was I'm sorry. I was I was just going to suggest if if this commission decides to hold off, which is perfectly okay. We do this at council sometimes, too. We need to be clear with staff what information that we need. What what we what we don't want to do is just hold off, get this in the next packet, and then we're just pausing the discussion to pause the discussion. That's okay. But we do need to be clear with staff, okay, this we don't need to understand or this we need more information on so they can bring that back to us at the next meeting so that we could make an informed decision. Um,

any other questions or comments to that end?

To to the comment of understanding. Um, I will say that I'm I'm I feel like I'm uh holding on by the skin of my teeth here. Um, trying to ramp up on on this. I'm doing my best to try to deeply understand this. Um, and I think part of my confusion is the mixing of the annexation discussion with the CPP changes. Um, because we are not making a motion that says council, we think it's a good idea to to annex or not. We're making a motion that says CPP these changes which change numbers and change ownership, you know, clarify responsibility in the UG, we think we're we're good or not. So, uh, you know, this the conversation about the annexation seems seems to be, you know, at least it's been confusing me a little bit back and forth. Um, but I think I'm um I was clear and that's why I asked those questions um to CAC um that you know it seems to me if I can kind of try to restate that from a technical standpoint the numbers um that are in this change we are sound like we're technically capable of planning for and are in the realm of of reason for us to deal with the um the uh technical wording changes clarify UG ownership in a way that that helps um make the prop easier and from a timeline um and the overall process and you know nothing's ever perfect. It's it seems like this this change and approving it will will free us up to to start making movements that need to happen one way or the other. Um, so I I think I'd be ready to to make a motion, but I I agree with asking, you know, the rest of the uh um commission if how they feel about their

understanding and and you know, their concerns or not. And if I said anything wrong there, please jump up to and yell CAC. [laughter]

Thank you, Commissioner. Any any further comments? All right. Do I have a motion? Oh, you you have anything?

Oh, I was just going to uh uh I was agreeing with Council Member Shaki. I would make a motion that we move to recommended the city council ratify the proposed amendments. Um we have C's gone over this a few times, at least a few times I've been here. Uh, so I I I do agree that the um the numbers aren't what I would like to see, but uh the smaller numbers are better than the larger numbers. So I would at least go with that. Um so I would make a motion that we approve. Are are you make is that your motion?

That's firm. Yes. It's uh moved to recommend the city council ratify proposed amendments to the countywide planning policy. Second. Okay. I have a motion to recommend to the city council to ratify the amendments. Um and a second. Any further discussion?

Um ju just a you know having read through the Roberts, it's important that you read very specifically the exact wording of the motion. Okay. All right. So, the motion on the on the floor then is to move to recommend that the city council ratify the proposed amendments to the citywide planning policies. That's the motion and it's been seconded. Any further discussion?

Yes. I um I before voting on this, I'd just like to comment that honestly I think that the amount of annexation being proposed, even though it's not technically part of the recommended option or the the motion, I feel like that's that number is really low and I'd like to see that the staff make more selections going forward. even though that's not within our purview. At the same time, I feel like that's something that should probably be happening more.

Um, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, part of it is the county has to play ball. Um, as far as that goes. Well, yes, but I think I I was waiting for the motions to all in to answer the question. When it comes into the city, you'll get higher numbers out of it. But for our current purpose, since it's still in the county, we have to use the county numbers. So, the the intent is for to be annexed into the city. the they'll come in with an R2 zoning which is the low density zoning that we have generally for most annex land that comes in and once it comes in it'll be part of the EIS which I'll explain a little bit what's coming up as part of our comp plan alternatives land uses you're going to see more numbers out of those than what the county has assigned but for today's purposes we have to use those numbers.

Okay. All right. We need a vote on the motion. Um, and I'll restate it again. The motion is to recommend that the city council ratify the proposed amendments to the citywide planning policies. All in favor? I I opposed. Motion passes. All right. Um K, do you have any any more? Um I think the next item was the proposed updates is Yep.

So the next item is also on the comprehensive plan. Um this is um the I have a short slideshow hopefully that will walk us through uh what we're trying to do and in the process I'll try and share as much information for our new members to catch up. So um what we're doing right now uh as part of any comprehensive plan review or any plan review is to first look at what the existing policies say and what do we feel about it? What changes are we thinking about and what are the what is the state asking us to change. So that is the stage we are in right now. That's preliminary look at what the current policies are saying and that's what we're looking at right now. So um we went through uh with the planning commission and the city council um reviewing all the policies uh in in the comp plan. We looked at uh last September we looked at the urban design element, the transportation element, utilities and capital facilities. In October we looked at parks and recreation, economic development, government services and climate resiliency. Um I uh in the at the October meeting with the climate resiliency, we actually had the consultants come. I think we had a workshop session with the city council and the planning commission where the consultants came and presented uh the climate information. They have an assessment of all the assets that O carver has and how it's impacted and what the um uh what their resiliency is and and what do we need to plan for. So uh went through that uh discussion in in October and then in December we um provided the documents that you have in front of you right now. The land use, housing and urban growth area and um we

didn't have the uh December meeting and the January meeting. So here we are just looking at it and we'll probably take these policies to the city council uh likely either at their February workshop or the first workshop in March as well. So again, this is just a first look uh from um just from everybody's perspective, staff's perspective, consultants perspective, city council and planning commission's perspective on what the current policies are and just taking comments at this time. So um usually with any uh every comprehensive plan amendment or any plan that you adopt, you're supposed to do a SEPA analysis and that is something that we do with all our plan adoptions and our comprehensive plan has to also go through that uh go through a SEPA analysis where we review all the new policies against um uh environmental policies and and see what the impacts are and determine whether any mitigation is required and whether any changes are happening. So for this update we also have we have to do a sea. However when you determine that you are adopting a new plan and this new plan is going to have significant impact. You know it you know you know we all know that 5,000 units or 3,000 units is a lot. Currently we have 7,000 lots or so in Okabar. So if you think of it, you know, adding 3,000 more units is a is a large number. Our population is going to increase beyond our original scope of what we had planned for back in 1995 or back even in 2005 or 2016. The numbers are exceeding. So we know that we're going to have significant impacts and the pressures on for higher density development and storm water, all of it is going to be

impacted. We know that. We just don't know the level of that impact. So with this update, we since we know that we have to take on large numbers and we're going to have impact, we're going to we determine that there's going to the impact is going to be significant. And so part of the SEO process is to say when when you determine that you're going to have significant impacts, just call a determination of significance. It's what called the DS and that's starts a environmental impact statement process and that's kind of what we are beginning. uh we have hired consultants uh the same consultants that are doing a comp plan are also going to assist us with doing a EIS and what they do in this EIS it's an expanded version of this sea and so they take all the new policies or and actually the environmental impact statement says you have to look at alternatives so let's say you know we have plans to get a certain number of housing and for this housing we have um a certain reasonzoning that we're doing or we're increasing our height regulations etc. We've determined that and uh we've and so the environmental impact statement is supposed to look at the impacts of what you're going to adopt. However, with an EIS, the state gives you a chance to look at alternatives. It says well if this is your chosen alternatives when you do an EIS you should also look at other alternatives and assess them and then compare them. In a normal sea process you don't do that. In a normal sea process you just assess only the options that you're going to adopt and you just determine mitigation for that. With an EIS you get to choose alternatives. So this is a very unique process in the comprehensive planning process where you get to look at alternatives as a community. You get to make a choice in

terms of what tools you want to use going forward and you're not limited by just saying these are the tools that we think we'll get the numbers and that's it. Right? So this process is going to begin um in February or March with a notice. We have a noticing period when whenever you do an EIS, you make a determination. You put that out in the paper. You let the community know that the comprehensive plan is going through this EIS process. And then you go through a 30-day comment period where you're collecting comments based on uh you know what people want to see in the EIS um and and um what they want to see addressed as part of the comp plan. So that process is going to begin likely in February and March. We'll have a 30-day notice period and then we'll start to look at alternatives to what we want to consider in the comp plan. So so far you've been looking at policy statements and just lines that you're reading. You haven't seen maps. You haven't seen um you know districts. You haven't seen sub area plans. You haven't seen any of the graphical stuff yet. So all of that will be coming in with the EIS and that's when things will start to shape up in terms of where are we going to do resonings, where's our height increases going to happen, where is our density going to increase. All of that is yet to come. But right now we're just looking at what the existing policies are, how they've been working, and whether we need to change them. That's kind of what we're looking at. when we go through the EIS process and we select where we're going to reszone and what we're going to do some of these policies will change likely to change because for example let's say highway 20 all along Highway 20 if we increase our density to sixstory buildings the character of the road is going to change the character of the the accesses will change the character of all those street intersections will change and all of

these are impacts and we can't run them on our current policies we have to change So what we're looking at right now is just the snapshot of our current policies. We go through an EIS. We determine what tools we're going to use in order to accommodate the growth and where we want to grow as we'll cover. And we'll have some draft policies that will come at the tail end of it, which may look slightly different than what you have right now. However, all the input and all the comments that we make right now will funnel into that draft policy at the very end. So that's kind of where we are right now. So with that, I'll just jump into um the the um comments that we've had so far from staff and um from um uh the consultants and from the state law requirements. So that's kind of what we're trying to uh capture with this with this round of review. So I've summarized uh uh them. I'll go through them real quick. I know it's a a big document. There's a lot of comments. If uh if you have written comments, uh we'll take them uh if you want to send it to them by email. We'll uh add it to our uh uh our comments public comment list and and incorporate it uh into uh into the process. So with that, I'll uh see if we can quickly go through our policy. So just want to um kind of give you an outline of how the document is structured. uh we have a spreadsheet on uh on one column we have the goal numbers the policy numbers and the page numbers they came out of and they the consultants have given a kind of a theme subheading those are things that they have assigned as in terms of reference to the policy it's not part of our comp plan that's just something uh that they have done so that we have a better understanding of what the policy means so and then we have a column that states the existing

policy and then the column that talks about the proposed policy revision and then maybe some reasoning notes whether it's a new policy or whether staff added some comments or the consultant added comments. We just want to be transparent and share. Uh I think that's part of what uh a lot of people like to see is those working documents. What was you know what are the thoughts and comments behind all these changes. So we've tried our best to to just capture those uh as part of the packet. So uh try to summarize some of the changes that we tried um all these all the policies we've had internal discussions the planning department uh with our engineering department um so we've uh kind of vetted a lot of these uh policies with the existing staff and uh try to determine you know does this policy work is this something that we should continue to do etc and so I'll try and summarize what we've come up ood. So, uh, in the land use element, we've had quite a few changes. Um, neighborhood character, we revised the language on that. Neighborhood character is a is a great word, a planning term that's been used in a a lot of planning documents. But over the years, they found out that that term can become a challenge depending on what neighborhood you're talking about. Uh, everybody has an idea of what a neighborhood character is, but different neighborhoods have different characters. And when you get into design guidelines and when you get into the weeds in terms of development approvals and this neighborhood character comes up, it sometimes is is a way for uh uh you know people to uh kind of look at a project very differently and maybe even oppose it uh just because neighborhood character is very general and you can't you can't pinpoint it. So

we try to kind of um make sure that we um um don't um have inadvertently you know terminologies in there that works against uh equity basically and that's mainly what we're trying to do. So um again I wanted to just quickly go over what are some of the main things that are driving the changes. Uh equity, climate resilience, environmental justice, uh compliance with state law, uh promote sustainable development, improve community well-being. That's those are the kind of criterias we kind of filters we use to see what changes we should make. uh open space again expanded policies to include the climate resilience uh benefits of open space. Zoning tools, we broaden the scope of the zoning tools to include overlay zones and foam based codes for promoting mixeduse developments. Um climate resilience, we added support for uh climate resilient policies related to again open space preservation with all the densification that we're doing or we need to do in order to get to our numbers. There's some um some policies that have been strengthened for uh open space and climate resilience. [clears throat] Uh alternate modes added specificity to promote walking and biking. That's something that I think we'll continue to do. Uh with all the density increases, I don't think we're going to be keeping on expanding our roads. Uh I think we'll be more of a maintenance and kind of keep what we have and find other ways to use it. So I think walking and biking and all these alternate modes of transportation is going to be very critical for our next 20 to 30 years in terms of how we move people through the community. So um policies to try and make sure that we keep that uh on top and then road connectivity uh expanding policies to emphasize connectivity.

That's one of the main things that Oak Harbor faces. Uh even today with the highway um you know the west side of the highway is mostly um sort of a 80s90s culde-sac type development. You look at east of the highway and you have all the grid style patterns and you can see on which side of town the there are more options for uh traffic uh dispersion so to speak. And so what happens is if you don't have ways to disperse your traffic or alternate ways to get to your destination, all the traffic comes down to Highway 20, which then burdens your highway 20 lanes. And so connectivity and other modes of transportation are going to help basically um relieve some of that uh um some issues. So uh native vegetation again the these policies were expanded to uh retain and promote native vegetation. Um again we want to try and um discourage premature land clearing. Uh in the same vein want to try and uh uh preserve native vegetation wherever possible. Waterfront development revised policies to promote higher densities and amenities through that area. I know that's a interest for city council and and the community. So, we keep um making sure that we provide ample opportunities along the waterfront uh for development and then flexible zoning um uh to try and encourage development and redevelopment along Midway Boulevard using overlay zones. So, some more specific specificity added to that language. housing. Um, again, as I mentioned earlier, this time's update required all of the planning for the various housing

income levels. So, we had to adjust some of our policies to try and make sure we again, this is the equity and the social justice aspect of it to try and make sure that we're providing housing for all. Um, so these um like shelters, emergency, transitional, and permanent supportive housing are considered housing. A lot of people don't think they're housing and they need to be in industrial areas or in commercial areas, but they're part of the housing community and the state requires us and at the federal level as well to view these uses as part of residential and so you cannot push them out of your residential zone. So you need to be inclusive of them uh in your residential community. So adding policies to make sure that they have uh the room for that. Um again accessory dwelling units um that we have a very permissive accessory dwelling units. Want to try and provide more opportunities there for to make it more affordable. Uh policies on affordable housing. Again these are some of new policies that are coming from the state in terms of trying to keep track of housing and evaluate uh how housing is progressing in the community. And uh then again, climate resilience added policies to ensure affordable housing is not located in areas that are vulnerable. And this is very important because for example, we have vulnerable areas in O Harbor. A lot of them actually all our noise zones are vulnerable areas. You know, we have as you get closer to the base, we have higher and higher noise areas. And so we have uh uh put land uses all our non-residential land uses in the north end of town so that people can live in areas that are not as noisy. But with the housing pressure, we felt we there was a lot of pressure to kind of move residential into the northern areas because industrial developments are

slower to happen. People see that they can pick up a couple properties and make them into residential. And this is mostly these areas will develop into low income residential which means you're putting these people in more of these sensitive areas which doesn't you know kind of balance that equity lens. So we have to be careful and make sure that we're inclusive and not have all these um uh vulnerable population in areas that are impacted by climate resilient by climate or by noise and so on. So something to uh those policies have been added. Uh urban growth area. This is again this is a this was something that uh um was discussed at the last topic about UG and annexations. We have policies here uh regarding annexations. Uh we've done some uh the changes here. We've updated language to align with the countywide planning policies to emphasize the city's role in assigning urban densities within the UG. So we had some policies that were kind of archaic from from years ago when when the city thought that had planning authority in the UG and actually more and more we're learning that we have less and less planning authority in the UG. So we're adjusting our policies to be realistic of how we can plan for it. Uh annexation we added language to ensure annexations are logical extensions of the city. again talking about trying to not create islands um because those are challenges and green belts and this is there was uh you know green belts are are a concept that came back from the ' 60s7s and 80s where you can have these green belts around the city but these planning concepts have not um been successful

um in in um achieving what they intended to achieve. And so um we've removed some references to green belts. Uh we I think we can do it by different ways than calling them green belts. Um so I think we have enough policies uh for connections and pathways and so on and um that we can achieve them in different ways. So, we kind of took references to them, but um I'll tell you right away that we are some of these comments. We're already getting comments from the state uh in terms of um some of the statements that we're making that they want us to put that back in because they have different um reasons for like, you know, we got comments from Fish and Wildlife to maintain some of these green belts for um migration. uh you know patterns and so on. So I think you know again this is like I said this is a draft. We're taking comments and we're continually working. I want to be transparent even though we think that the green belt is a is a is an outdated concept. Fish and wildlife think that that's one way to promote migration of uh you know wildlife uh in and around the city. And we may actually rephrase it in our amended policies. there's a different way of tackling it than maybe calling it green belt. So, uh terminology changes but the intent is there uh in in all of it. Some of the new goals and policies affordable housing introduce goals and policies to increase affordable housing opportunities, preserve housing stock and address barriers to housing development. Uh again enable justice goals added goals to promote housing equity in in my justice again um some changes as I

mentioned highlighted there and displacement prevention proposed measures to uh in economic strategies to reduce displacement of existing communities and uh this is something that's also again the vulnerable population usually is in the faces this is you know when redevelopment occurs it's usually the the vulnerable population that are impacted more in terms of redevelopment and the state is trying to find um ways to try and preserve some of those um housing and vulnerable population as well. Um so that's just uh my brief summary. I know there's a lot more policies and a lot more detail in there. Like I said um if you have written comments, we'll be please email them to us. um and feel free to um give us comments online as well. Uh we'll take them in and and and uh put them through the process. So with that, I will stop and open it up for questions and comments and thoughts. And CAC, very quickly, when the planning commission submits comments to us, is is it accurate that we are then forwarding on those comments to Kimley Horn, who is then taking those comments, summarizing them, and then we are bringing back those summarized comments as recommended updates to the goals and policies.

Yes, we will forward to the consultants. However, revising policies immediately. I think they'll come revised with the draft policies because policies will evolve and change. So, one thing that I do want to let you know is all the policies that are in our document right now when we get to our draft EIS, like after we do our environmental impact statement and get to our draft policies, we may combine policies. We may change policies, not change but reward them to to uh capture the intent of what we want to do. And so they won't they may not sometimes be in the exact format in the in the exact way. So it would be deceiving if I were to take comments, make the changes, and give you revised comments and then go back to the draft policy and change them again. Right? So, I'm just saying we'll take comments and we'll put them in the process. A lot of things will go through the mill and we'll change. We'll eventually have to go to the draft EIS and take a look at it to make sure that we're all accommodating of everything. So, that's the that's the way the process works and that's how we the resources we have to address that. So,

thanks Captain. Okay. Thank you. Um, Commissioner Warden, uh, just to point, it looks like in the packet there were two public comments that we didn't, uh, review before starting this item. So, uh, are those new comments and they should be reviewed or shown on the screen or they they came in as part of our comp plan? We just include them as part of the planning commission document as a PL as a public comment. They get part of any other public comment they get into the process. They didn't come. Um I don't know if we need to specifically look at one from October.

I'm sorry. I can't hear. Um Council Member Stucky, if you if you're referring to the one at least the one that's Are you referring to the one that's at the very end of the packet on page 127? There there's actually two. There's one from a private individual discussing what they'd like to see in the plan. There's a second one um summarizing uh a parcel uh a couple parcels and annexation. Yeah, I did notice the date on that from October. I mean, if they they've been displayed, I imagine they probably have been displayed prior

if they came in to the city council uh comment box or the planning commission comment box. Usually they are displayed at the meetings. Um, this is for comp plan input and that's a separate comp plan uh comment box for the comprehensive plan and that's usually not displayed at the council or the planning commission because it's an input to the plan. So, we just throw it into or we include it into the packet here for public consumption basically as part of a public record.

Okay. Um, you know, I'd like to say I I did personally read them and I appreciate everybody making comments. Um, to anyone listening or looking at this, please please do get your comments in. Um, it's super valuable and super important to the process. Um, I have numerous questions and comments on this particular section, but I've been monopolizing everything, so I' I'd be willing to hold mine until others have gone. Any other comments, questions? Floor is yours, Commissioner.

Thank you. Uh, first of all, um, I I noticed the overlay zones have been added into the vernacular here. And, uh, very quickly, you know, I just did, you know, standard Google search. I'm I'm still trying to make sure that I I do my, you know, good due diligence here. It seems like there's a conflict between the idea of an overlay zone and formbbased codes. I was just hoping you could give us kind of the technical definition of an overlay zone and how those are actually working together to achieve our goals here um since it seems like it's being added in as a concept.

Yeah, good question. Overlay zones uh usually work well with the existing zoning tools that we have. Um the formbbased code is a concept that the city would aspire would like to aspire to but I think the formbbased code is a few years away um for u coming for any discussion or implementation. So, um, overlay zones are basically, um, a a layer of regulation that you can put on top of an existing zoning layer for extra opportunities. So, give you an example. Let's say you have a commercialzoned property and commercially zoned properties uh do not permit residential on the ground floor. They require either residential on the upper floors. You could do mixeduse vertical mixed use or you could do a horizontal mixed use where you have commercial at the street front and residential in the back. So you can if if there's a commercial area where where the city thinks that it could use redevelopment and could reuse redevelopment at a fast pace. Then for a particular area you can put an overlay zone and you can say for this particular zone the parking is reduced by 0.5 parking spaces or you can say that the setbacks are reduced or something of that nature with these overlay zones. So that's what an overlay

zone does. It provides opportunities over an existing zoning layer. Whereas a foam based code is a completely new approach to zoning ordinance and how it regulates. And so it's a completely uh new system. So we want to keep the foam based code as an aspiration for the department and for the city to go towards, but we're not there yet. But in the meantime, we still need to have tools to support our development and the overlay zones are going to be a valuable tool that we can use with this current update. So, so if I'm hearing you right, instead of saying like creating a a new R2, you know, or whatever, we could say R2 overlaid with other is sort of like an R2.1 or something like that. And it allows us to modify these, you know, the our basic zoning types without redeclaring and recoloring that map in.

Yeah. Okay.

Um and um so this this gets to a sort of a broader comment about um the goals and policies that I see. There's some some harmonization questions like that. It it seems like there's a what you're implying is there's a timing question about formbbased codes versus um a logical like we're we're looking at overlay zones as a as a logical what we can do right now and form based codes is the long term and um and and so like there's nothing that implies this timing of when we'll get to form based codes. it seems like it's been aspirational and been in the plan for 10 years now and we haven't made a made progress on it. Um, how do we how do we address like the aspirational statements that are in here and get them from aspiration to actual implementation and you know I'm sorry I'm rambling a little bit but there's a lot of aspiration and it doesn't seem like we're making motion. How can we change things to start getting this plan to actually get us moving forward?

[clears throat]

Good good question and good good thoughts. Um I I can understand the planning commission's desire to get to a actionable plan of sorts. Um and I totally understand that. But I want to um caution the planning commission in terms of going very much in that direction because this is a policy document. So the comprehensive plan, if I can take a step back, the comprehensive plan is an umbrella document that has, you know, large policy statements that not only can become actions or become other plans, but they also support our regulations and things like that. So this policy document is not limited to only things that you want to try and achieve in 20 years. Okay? This is a document that comprises of policy statements that backs up our entire regulations. And so you have a lot of these policies that are that are there as anchors as legal frameworks for your zoning ordinance. Okay? So the connection between comprehensive plans and zoning ordinance is that your comprehensive plan is your anchor. Your zoning is your implementation tool. Right? So that is the link normally that people forget. You think that all plans are just plans for your 20 years and get your action. That's not necessarily the case. You have sub area plans. You can have a downtown plan. You can have a midway corridor plan. You can have a highway corridor plan. And those plans could be actionable. But your comprehensive plan needs to be a policy document. It can have action items. It can say aspirational things. And you want to keep it general because when you have

changing circumstances in the community, you want to be able to adapt your policies to the changing environment a little bit to be able to support and give opportunities. So you don't want to try and restrict all of your statements to be very actionable plans. You do want to have aspirational things. And some of these aspirational things are based on timing. So you may not have the resources. You may not have the right population. You may not have the right um ingredients to do a particular action at a particular time and you may have to necessaril have to wait uh for uh the right time to do it and when you do come upon that time then if you have the policies you can move on faster than that and not have to reinvent the policies. So these some of these statements may seem very general and not actionable but they are designed and purpose to be that way so that you do provide flexibility for the community in the long run. So these documents are kind of uh uh they're not necessarily very technical documents and you're not trying to achieve every policy within the next 20 years. This is a moving target, right? I mean this plan is always a moving target. It's always a moving 20-year window and your policies and regulations will change as it goes. Small differences here and there and you want to provide for that opportunity and not have every um every policy and every goal be actionable. You have sub area plans and other action plans. Sometimes you call them action plans just to do that which will have more specific steps on where on how you get to some things. So that's just a step back on why some of these policies are very general and aspirational. They are intended to be that way so that they give the community

the most flexibility uh when making choices.

I think that was just wonderfully well said. Thank you, CAC. Um this is something that comes up at the Department of Commerce short courses all the time. So I'm going to quote the director of the Department of Commerce. I know C's heard this a million times, too. A city's comprehensive plan is an exercise in disciplined imagination. So it's an opportunity to imagine that future that 20 years and to be a little bit pie in the sky. But it it is a practice and discipline. It has to be reasonable budgeted uh you have to meet concurrency within it. We have to be able to serve what we're planning uh the growth that we're planning etc. So, I think you asked a really good question, Commissioner, about well, when what how and when do we decide when we take these plans and policies and make them make them uh um make them real, make them actionable? And part of the answer to that is sort of what we talked about earlier with uh the department heads individual work programs. Council's making a lot of those decisions through their budget decisions, through capital improvement plans. So, we have all these long range plans, all these long range budgets in the comprehensive plan, and then we pass these six-year plans that budget out when we're doing these projects. When we're ready to do a form-based code, council's going to set aside the money and the staff to work on that form-based code. So, I I just wanted to bring it down a little bit even further into sort of reality, if you will. Um, so comp plan, looking at that really long range pie in the sky, make sure we get that grant money, make sure we stay uh out of the crosshairs of the growth management hearings board, etc. Passing those CIPs, capital improvement plans, transportation improvement plans, which take those long range plans and put them within the six-year, making the budgets the reality. and then even getting narrower down into the programmatic which is those yearly work programs that are then

budgeted and implemented by your staff and your department heads. So I so I hope that kind of brings it down into the kind of narrows that pyramid a little bit. So imagination but discipline. Um, thank you. And uh, just because I cannot see the camera and I believe it was that you was that director or pressure that you Sorry comments. Yeah, I see a hand moving and I'm assuming it's you, but I'm just not I'm not sure since I I missed the very beginning when you were introduced and and welcome. Uh, this is the first uh, planning commission meeting you've been to. It is. Thank you.

It's great to have you uh, finally on board. Yeah, it's great. Thank you.

Um, thank you both uh for that. Um, I I I get the uh the trying to be an imaginative. I think for this particular one that I brought up, it seemed like there was a conflict there that um potentially a couple extra words talking about sequencing. you know, in the short term, we're looking at um the overlay zones and it's a potentially longer term vision to shift towards it. Um could help understand why these two things which appear to be opposing views on the same topic are appearing within the same section. Um at least that's the the broad comment there. Um I I have plenty of others uh to go through. Uh I I'll trust I'll try to just hit some really big pieces and I will send into you some more detailed comments um on these. Uh but there seems to be a tension about open space um and two specific you know there's specific examples about um open space for for example climate change issues and preserving open space um and I I I think that this of a discussion talking about preserving open space inside of a city um without potentially referencing why we would be preserving that open space and where the the preservation of that open space would be prioritized um and and thought about you know so very specifically like if we're preserving open space is this to increase the level of service that the you know parks plan should be discussing you know preserving open space to preserve open space inside of a city seems antithesis of what a city's useful at you know creating that density so that we can preserve the island feel outside of us um to me seems to be a very important goal that this is the exact opposite of what we're trying to go for. So, I was hoping you could talk

about the pres preser preserving open space pieces that are throughout this. There's several comments all throughout. Um, and potentially talking about that tension between like the more we preserve inside, the more we're ripping outside and how this balances those trying to I I I think is is I think your question basically revolves around you know the concept of preserving open space within the city or preserving open space outside the city. Is that the is that the basic question? Should we preserve open space inside the city? [snorts] And but you brought up the question of outside the city as well. So I'm trying to understand how to respond in terms of uh

Sure. Uh so uh to be a little bit more clear um an example um uh where'd it go? Uh shoot there's the new climate resilience stuff uh talks about preserving open space u for climate resilience. It'd be good to understand how that actually helps us for climate resilience. Also a there's a section that says encourage u private and public preservation of undeveloped open space. Um it's just a blanket statement. um you know and that's that's a a goal and to me preserving open space undeveloped open space inside of the city is is preserving brown fill. So if it's preserving in order to meet levels of service of parks and part of the parks plan that makes sense. Um but a generic blanket encourage private and public preservation of undeveloped open space without context of of what this helps the city to do. Um leads to us just saying hey we want low density in the city and we're trying to push outwards. So I'm trying to understand what where these different open spaces actually help the city. That's the thing that's missing to me is is how does it help the city for each of these line items that say preserve open space.

Got you. Okay. [clears throat] Good question. Um, so some of the policy statements that you're referring to may refer to open space from a city-wide perspective and some of it may refer to open space from a development perspective. So when you build a house on a lot, you know, you we have floor area ratios that say how much of your land could be covered by building space and how much of it shouldn't, you know. So the what where you shouldn't have building space is probably considered like your open space you know so there's a ratio there. So if you say floor floor area ratio is 40% then the expectation is at least 60% of your lot will be open space. So there's a open space requirement that's uh that uh we have in our development regulations that developers will have to take into account when they actually do developments. Um, so there are policies and there could be policies that address that and then there are open space policies that probably address citywide open space. So when the my understanding and I wasn't here uh when the first comprehensive plan was adopted, there was actually a challenge uh brought about uh to say that the city did not consider open spaces as part of their planning. And so the city went back and um in their land use plan actually identified uh areas that are open spaces. And um surprisingly the uh golf course uh on Swantown Road is one of those spaces that is recognized as an open space. And I think that's where the preservation clause may come in is the private public partnership to preserve

open space because some of these lands may have been designated as open space as part of that. So for example, the um uh lot that is north of the U-Haul on Highway 20 as you come into the city. Again, that's in a noise zone that's in the city, but it's in a noise zone and an accident potential zone. And that's where the Gary Oak trees, it's, you know, the the the U decision to uh make that the city, the county, and the navy pulled resources and bought that land to make sure that that land doesn't develop. and that was uh designated as open space in order to promote that. So you you keep these policies in place that there are pockets inside the city where there's you know undeveloped land because of various reasons again accident potential zones or noise zones or critical areas etc where it's essential to preserve that for the public benefit and that's what I think we're trying to achieve with these policies or at least maintain these policies so that you can keep some of these open spaces is viable for a longer period of time.

So I can totally agree that um strategically preserving various parts of open space work towards long-term visions and planning for the city. Um I think the the broader comment I'm trying to get on here is you know we really need on lines like that that you know identifying how we're expecting this to help the city. So, um, without spec specificity just as a a a naive reading, it it it to me reads as we just want a lot of open spaces inside the city and that that is not healthy for a city. Um, unless we have, you know, valid plans for for why it's there. We are intending, you know, to support our parks plan to to support our noise abatement and crash zones to support these types of things. It's important to to kind of, you know, anything that's could be considered unhealthy for the city as a whole, we really need to, I personally think narrow them down in in our policy statements like that.

Quick comment. I mean, if if we have to assign a larger reason preserving open space, especially in critical areas, which noise zones are critical areas of sorts, um, then we can make that connection. But that's the idea is to is to have policies in place so that decision makers when they get an opportunity for a piece of land um that they think that they can maybe obtain or purchase uh for the community but it's not a developable piece of land you still want to maintain it as open space then these policies just support that action. Mhm. Um I have uh quite a few areas like this and I understand that uh the writing um write in uh passing them to you is probably the the best way. We're already at 2 hours which is sort of the intended maximum of this meeting I believe. Um so I I will try to write up and group those together. Um, I appreciate you putting all those documents together and I really really appreciate the summary of of where you're going than the um, it seems like that this summary is a little bit clearer than the the last couple meetings I've seen this on and that is super helpful saying here's kind of our intent for for for all of this. Um, I will say it would be really useful in a future meeting to to do a good recap of I know I know you can't say here are all the changes we've done, but to say potentially how previous comments have are being forwarded on or are potentially making changes and give um give updates to some of the the the broader pieces of the the planning process. Like it's been really great to see that there's been motion happening on the website. I'm super excited. I would love to to have that advertised here. There's some some some new things happening on the website. Please check them out and, you know, give some props to to to

those involved. Um, so again, thank you for for this. I think that's all my comments. I'll send the rest on uh in my write up. Yeah. No, great comments and good discussion. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Commissioner. Any other comments or questions? Oh. All right. With that, um, I'll close the member comment section of tonight's meeting. And our next scheduled meeting date is March 10th, 2026. And after that, do I have a motion for adjournment? I'll motion to adjurnn. Second. Nope. Oh, wait.

One more. One more item.

Sorry. Just a um question actually we are looking at trying to get a joint meeting between the planning commission and city council in April and the reason for that is um as I mentioned we're going through this EIS process and we'll have the scoping but we want to get to those three alternatives right um the three alternatives for the EIS one will be a no action alternative in the sense You have to do that as part of the analysis. It's like what is the result if you don't take any action at all is one of the alternatives. Then you have a preferred alternative which is all your growth and how you're going to accommodate the 3,000 units. Then we'll have a sort of high growth alternative or a different alternative that has more tools and more um density and so on and the analysis. And we want to uh we're trying to get the consultants to come and um and share that information with the council and the planning commission in a joint session uh which I think will be the exciting part because that's where the maps are, the overlay zones and all that will come and it'll be nice to have the city council and the planning commission in the same room so that we're not going back and forth in terms of what is the city council expecting from the planning commission etc. And we we'll be trying to do that. So my question to you is, is the planning commission open to um shifting their April meeting date from the second Tuesday to the 4th Tuesday, which is we're trying to align it with the city council workshop on the 28th. So, I think the original planning commission meeting was April

April 14th and we're wondering if the April 28th would work. And usually the study sessions and I'm not sure if the planning commission's work schedule is the the workshops are at 1:00 in the afternoon. [laughter] So, that was the question I wanted to ask. If it doesn't if it doesn't work for you guys in the afternoon at all, we'll have to talk to the city council and see if we can schedule a special meeting in the evening. But I just want to take a poll from the planning commission to see if you're open to some flexibility in April to have that joint meeting with the city council.

I I won't get my schedule until the middle of March. So, okay. that if I am here the time won't matter either way I suppose I can make an appearance [laughter]

commissioner I'll say that um I believe I can get the time off since I have a a a standard 9 to5 but I will definitely double check with my superiors that that it's okay to to do that. Okay. Thank you. Um I think it would be a good thing. Um 1:00 is kind of the middle of my night. Um but I'll see what I can do about maybe taking the day off before or after something like that. So we can make it work. Okay. Be a monster. There we go. [laughter]

So So we'll we'll we'll we'll talk to the city council. We'll see if they'll open. It'll be like a you know we've had a joint meeting between city council and and planning commission doing their workshop. Usually the first hour is is taken for the joint workshop and then the city council will go about doing their stuff. So I don't expect it to be you know like a 2 to three hour meeting. I'm expecting it to be an hour or maybe a little more. So even if we um have a workshop hopefully it'll be short and won't take up the entire afternoon. But I mean, we'll try and shoot for it. If we'll send you emails. If you guys can't make that work, we'll ask the city council if they can meet in the evening, see if we can make that work. If we can't make it work, we'll have to do two meetings. I'm just trying to be efficient uh with our time and consultant.

Okay. Okay. That's all I have is uh Oh, there he is. Commissioner Ward, you're I'm sorry. I'm having technical difficulties. I will say that I am totally willing to do that. I should be able to make it. It is, you know, barring anything crazy. Okay. Good. Thank you. Okay. All right. So, it sounds like we'll be able to to make that work at least in in some form. Sounds good. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Anything else? Any other comments? All right. Yep. Oh, do I Does it still get to carry since we stopped it or Yeah. Okay. So, I have a motion to adjurnn in a second. All in favor?