Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening everybody. Welcome to Tuesday, June 9th, City Planning Commission meeting. I'd like to call the meeting to order at 6 p.m. So for a roll call for tonight, we have... Our vice chair, Jeffrey Ward, is with us online. Kevin Wilson is absent today, and Cody Bakken is online with us as well. I'm here in person, as well as our city council member, Brian Stuckey. So our first item on our agenda is the approval of February 10th. Meeting minutes. So I'm looking for.

We need to do the agenda first.

Oh, what's that?

We need to approve the agenda first.

OK, I need to approve the agenda. So I need it. So everybody should either gotten an email or we have it on paper. So we need approval of this week's agenda meeting agenda. So moved. So I got a motion. Second. Okay. So Alright, so. So now I have a motion now I need a second.

Oh, sorry, I thought there was a motion that I said, I forgot.

I'm not supposed to my apologies.

I didn't move.

Alright, so I have a motion now I need a second. Hello?

So can you actually second it since you're a member of the.

Yeah. Yeah, I'll second it then. So all in favor. Aye. Aye. Opposed. All right. So. Cody, can you hear us?

Yes, I'm sorry, I'm having some technical difficulties. The camera just won't turn on.

OK.

But yes, I do approve the minutes.

Okay, gotcha. So the agenda's been approved. And so now with that, our first item on the agenda then would be the approval of minutes from the February 10th meeting. So do I have a motion to approve those minutes? Those minutes are also included in your packet. Do we need a If you need a second to review it, then take a minute. And then whenever you're ready, I need a motion to approve February's minutes.

Is it appropriate to make a comment? Yes. At this point? Yes. I just wanted to point out that while I was delayed by 13 minutes for that meeting, I did go back and review the video. So I feel that I'm fully capable of voting on approval for that. And so I make a motion to approve the minutes for the 10th.

Okay, I got a motion to approve February 10th minutes. I'll second it. All in favor? Aye. Approval of the minutes for February 10th passes. Now we move on to approval of the minutes for April 14th, 2026. So take a minute to look at those or if there's any comments.

I'll move to approve the minutes. I second.

All right. I have a motion to approve in a second for the April 14th minutes. All in favor? Aye.

Aye.

All right. And the minutes passed. all right next item on our agenda is the public comment during this time citizens may comment on subjects of interest not on the agenda if you'd like to speak on an item on the agenda you will have the opportunity to do so when the agenda item is called to ensure comments are recorded properly state your name clearly into the microphone and indicate whether you live inside or outside the city limits Please limit comments to three minutes to ensure all have sufficient time to speak. Public comments may also be submitted online at www.oakharbor.gov backslash public comments at least two business days in advance of the meeting. So we don't have anybody seeing nobody here in person. We did receive a couple public comments that are included in the packet. So take a minute to review those.

Thank you.

Okay, well, that's it for public comments and nobody else. So we'll move on to our first.

Can I make a quick comment here?

Absolutely. Go ahead.

I would just, maybe this is a question to... um city council member stuckey but is this the the rv comment seems like it it might be more addressable at the city council level is there more maybe this is to staff is there a way to afford that onto that or does it stay at our level It seems like this is a policy area that isn't currently under the planning commission's purview, understanding that the police chief is crafting and managing that kind of ordinance.

So when folks leave a public comment online, they can check boxes to see where they'd like it sent. So it's not unusual for things to get sent to city council and then the box to also be checked to go to commissions such as this. The vote on that was already held at our last full city council meeting.

So that was my big comment. To those listening, thank you for your comment. I'm sorry that we were unable to have a quorum before to ask these questions and forward them on. We deeply appreciate everything that comes in. And I really appreciate the comment on the Gary Oaks. I have multiple Gary Oaks. Well, I have fewer Gary Oaks on my property now that some of them have fallen. So I appreciate the significance of those as well. Thank you.

Yes, thanks for all the comments. And like Council Member Stuckey was saying, at the very bottom of each public comment submitted online, you'll see where they wanted it to go. It says, please share this comment with. All right. So that wraps up public comment. So we'll move on to our discussion portion of the meeting. Our first item is the critical areas ordinance updates, commerce checklist, and it's going to be presented by Dennis Lefevre. Dennis.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the commission, Councilor Stuckey. Welcome. The meaning of the presentation tonight is to kind of give you an overview as to our critical areas ordinance and how did that piece of our ordinance basically fit into the rest of the major planning effort that we're looking at as far as updating the comprehensive plan and our other development regulations. So I am going to pull up our slide presentation here and see if I'm successful in doing so. Can you all see that? Yes. Okay, good. I'll start off with kind of a brief overview as to what the critical areas ordinance is and how it affects the city of Oak Harbor. As we all know, State statute requires that we go through and periodically review and update our comprehensive plan as well as all of our development regulations. And you've been very involved in that process as far as the comprehensive plan is concerned. Obviously, the critical areas are a component of our development regulations and they're encompassed in Title 20 of our municipal code. Critical areas have been mandated since the beginning of the Growth Management Act back in 1990. All cities and counties had to identify and serve to protect the critical areas, whether they were fully planning under the Act or not. Oak Harbor has been planning since the Act, fully under the Growth Management Act, and has been in compliance with all of the updates for the critical areas ordinance, including the latest one, which was back in 2018. That is encompassed in ordinance number 1801, which is a lengthy ordinance, but it's a good read anyways. Why are we looking at these now? Well, the critical areas ordinance portion of our code, which needs to be updated, is a relatively standalone portion of the municipal code. And when I say relatively standalone, we do obviously look at our critical areas ordinance in relation to any development project that comes across our desk. But it doesn't really relate to the the larger piece of the development regulations that are going to be updated as part of the middle housing requirements, the zoning requirements, the land use requirements that we're all going to be looking at later this year. So we thought we would take this opportunity to at least look at the critical areas ordinance and give you a first touch on those and let you know where we are standing with that piece of our code that needs to be updated. Critical areas ordinances are defined by statute and basically encompass five resource areas. They're all listed here. Wetlands, critical aquifer recharge areas, fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas, frequently flooded areas, and geologically hazardous areas. The Washington Department of Commerce basically administers the critical areas program as a whole and has provided as they do with some of the other larger planning efforts um a checklist that we can look through and see if we're somewhat in conformance with the new wax and uh statutes that have come out since the last major update and that was included as part of your packet as attachment one we we actually fared pretty well when we um did the checklist but they do delegate some of the expertise for these critical areas to other agencies such as wetlands or ecology is pretty much the expert on on that critical area critical area recharge aquifer is a county jurisdiction but there's also some information on the department of ecology's website Fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas are under the auspices of the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Frequently flooded areas are administered through FEMA, as we all know, but locally, statewide, they're run through the Department of Ecology. And the geologically hazardous areas are administered by the Washington Department of Natural Resources. Our current update status right now is for wetlands where it's encompassed in Chapter 20.24, and we're currently in review. We've had discussions with Ecology, and they also provided some guidance as to wetland delineations and the status of their guidebook on that, as well as some of the buffer areas that they may be requiring for four wetlands. So that is still currently under review. Critical aquifer recharge areas were basically in conformance with the checklist. That does not basically change a whole lot because there's geology that determines the degree of a critical aquifer recharge area isn't going to change dramatically. So we're not looking at making any amendments to that portion of the code. FISH AND WILDLIFE HABITAT CONSERVATION AREAS, WE ACTUALLY RECEIVED A NUMBER OF POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS FROM FISH AND WILDLIFE, AS WELL AS THE OAK HARBOR GARY OAK SOCIETY, WHICH WE ARE STILL, AS A STAFF, REVIEWING AND WILL BRING FORTH TO PLANNING COMMISSION AND CITY COUNCIL FOR APPROVAL ON ANY POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS AS PART OF THE COMP PLAN UPDATE. so that is still basically in flux because any policies that we include in the comp plan certainly could affect any development regulations that we have in that section of our code frequently flooded areas we are in pretty good shape i don't know if any of you remember but the last couple of years we've actually been working on that portion of our code to update it we had a visit from ecology two years ago and they looked at a variety of different project components that were in the floodplain. They also reviewed our code and made some recommendations and requirements that we do to update our code. At that time, a couple of years ago, we also thought that it might be a prudent idea TO ALSO ADDRESS FEMA'S CONCERN WITH BIOLOGICAL OPINION AND INCLUDE THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT MODEL ORDINANCE WITHIN THAT PIECE. WELL, WITH THE KIND OF THE TURNOVER AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL, FEMA HAS NOT BEEN VERY RESPONSIVE. SO WE RECEIVED GUIDANCE FROM ECOLOGY TO BASICALLY PAIR BACK OUR ORDINANCE TO include only their recommendations at this point in time. If FEMA decides to start reviewing again and staffs up, then we may be looking at including the ESA language, which eventually could lower the annual premiums for structures in the floodplain. But that piece is going to be at a later time. And I think it is attachment to identifies that portion of our code which is actually primarily in Title 17.20, the red line strikethrough reflects Ecology's recommendations. So I feel pretty comfortable that that piece of our code is pretty much in good shape at this point in time. Geologically hazardous areas, we, according to the checklist, WE'RE FOUND IN CONFORMANCE WITH SOME MINOR EDITS. I HAVE BEEN IN TOUCH WITH DNR STAFF FOR THAT SECTION OF OUR CODE. BUT AS YOU ALL KNOW, ALL OF THIS INFORMATION NEEDS TO BE BASED ON BEST AVAILABLE SCIENCE. SO WE WILL CONFIRM THAT ALL OF THE CODE UPDATES WILL BE IN CONFORMANCE WITH BEST AVAILABLE SCIENCE. BASICALLY, THE STATE AGENCIES HAVE THAT BEST AVAILABLE SCIENCE. um the other point that i would like to make too is the mapping that we included in our comprehensive plan back in 2016 uh certainly needs to be updated and that is known that it's a very archaic no offense to our mapping guru but um we need more information based on the updated databases that the state has provided. So we will be working in that direction as well. This is just for your information to identify where our floodlands are in the city of Oak Harbor. They're not extremely extensive, but they're certainly something to be aware of. This is off the flood insurance rate map of 2017. You can see that it stretches through Friends Marsh, Windjammer Park, takes in Dillard's Lane and then continues on over to not quite all the way over to Flintstone Park. But you can see the extent of the floodlands that we need to deal with as a regulatory agency. So our next steps for this is obviously refine some of the policy direction that have come from the comments from Fish and Wildlife and Gary Oaks. We will re-look at our drafts and prepare the redline strikethroughs as we go further on in the coming months. We'll certainly try to tee this up again for the Planning Commission and City Council for review, but the anticipated process will be linked eventually with the overall update to the development regulations. And obviously the critical areas will be a component of that complete development regulation update as we go through the public process and ultimately through adoption. We're anticipating sometime early next year. So that's a brief update on the critical areas ordinance and where we stand. And I certainly would be happy to respond to any questions that you may have.

Jeff, do you have a question?

Yeah. I have a couple. And if I start cutting out, let me know. I'm having some internet data issues here, so maybe I can kill my camera if I cut out too much. But Dennis, thank you for the presentation. I think this is a really important area. This is identifying critical areas and hazards that, in fact, do directly impact people, businesses, and critical services. You made a comment, and I'm sorry, I might have the section wrong. It was on the FFA section, I believe, where you said FEMA suggested scaling back, but that our edits potentially had benefits to insurance rates. Did I capture what you said there right? And can you elaborate on what those benefits would be, what the trade-offs are?

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. In order to fall into a rating system, it's a community rating system that is set up by FEMA, and there's certain pieces that a community have to have in order to be part of that system. One of them was actually completed due to some of the projects that didn't have a habitat assessment. contracted with a consultant to do a habitat assessment throughout the entire floodplain for the city. So that was one piece that needed to be done. The other is to craft language in our development code under the floodplain ordinance that addressed the biological opinion that created Well, it basically necessitated conformance with the Endangered Species Act for all developments in the floodplain. That was a biological opinion set forth from the National Marine Fisheries Service back in 2008, I believe. And in order to become part of the FEMA's community rating system, we needed to have that ESA language in our code. the other piece was to basically have FEMA review our habitat assessment and code and make sure that it's in conformance and then we would be able to apply as a community for the community rating system the rating system basically is the more code you have for the protection of structures in the floodplain, the less liable those structures are for damage, which means it basically saves FEMA costs and it would lower their, their being the structures who are paying for annual premiums for flood insurance, it would lower those annual premiums. So we haven't gotten to that point excuse me, simply because FEMA has not had the manpower recently to, one, review the update to our code that addressed the ESA issue, and also our habitat assessment. I've been working through Ecology, who is kind of the conduit to FEMA, and they said that they have not had any kind of responses from FEMA in for the review of our our our documents. So they're recommending that we tail back our flood ordinance to just include their comments and recommendations at this point in time. So I hope that answers your question Jeff.

FRED PODESTA. I think it does. And if I can just summarize. We basically did the work and we were putting the the verbiage in that we thought would get us for the community rating system. but it requires FEMA to acknowledge that we can't get FEMA to acknowledge it. So the, the advice that we've been given is to take that verbiage out because it does give additional restrictive language without benefit. Is that the overall gist of it? That's exactly right on. Okay. Uh, so my, my followup then is, I mean, it takes a while for stuff to happen and change and FEMA is likely to have its own changes. Um, There's a trade-off between potentially putting in verbiage now that will help people in the future if FEMA does start getting back to us. But what does that trade-off look like? Is it worth potentially keeping it in because we think that when FEMA does get around to it, they'll be able to quickly approve and then those benefits will come in? Or is it really truly the additional restrictions potentially are... not very helpful, and we think we could get that verbiage in quickly if FEMA started reviewing things to get the benefit.

Yeah, we certainly could get the verbiage in. The other thing that we'd have to do is discuss with our policymakers whether we wanted to actually take on the load of being a community-rated system. There's a lot of... There's a lot of monitoring involved in being part of that system. That would be a requirement through FEMA. And it could be a large load for staff in order to do that. But that would be a discussion that we'd have to have with our policymakers.

That's a very excellent point I had not thought of. Thank you for bringing that up. Is that something that potentially deserves its own kind of carve out of the presentation or is the I mean, I don't know how big the benefit is versus, you know, this is a staff time question and all that. I definitely do not want to say, hey, staff, go out and do X, Y, and Z. I'm just saying from a potential benefit to people in Oak Harbor, there is one here, workload costs, things that are in flux. Is it potentially something that we should have a very specific carve out that discusses those things a little bit more or at least something we could maybe put on an agenda later on?

Yeah, I think it's a later on type piece that we would want to look at. And right now, with the train moving down the track with the comp plan update and the development regulations, I don't want to hold that process back because, you know, a federal agency isn't being responsive. And the verbiage is ready to insert But again, I'd want to do some more research into the CRS system and make sure, you know, I would be recommending something that would be beneficial not only to staff, but also to our residents that are in the floodplain. So that piece will take more analysis and I would rather hold off on that at this point in time. Sure.

Do we have like a in the Navy it's called like a tickler system something that says on this date in the future at least and not necessarily start doing something but remind you to maybe think about whether we should do this or not is it is this something like in six months from now we should at least think about revisiting it or a year from now or some specific amount of time from now is there something that

I think that's a discussion that we can have as staff with my director and see if we can insert that at the appropriate time in our work plan.

Yeah. Again, not to task. I mean, just like, is it now the right time to think of this as something to think about, so to speak, when you actually do it? You know, because you're saying like right now a lot of things are in flux that we don't have control of. And they might be time dependent, you know, six months from now, a year from now, FEMA may finally have gotten resources that are going and it's the right time to start thinking about it again. You know, not to actually go off and again, I don't want to task staff reform.

Yeah, I think it's certainly something we could look at in the future. Yeah. Thank you.

I have a follow-up question, but I didn't want to steal everybody else's time. If they wanted to talk about similar discussions there, I have a follow-up question on the earthquake hazards, unless someone else wants to get to the earlier stuff that was mentioned.

yeah um just one second i'll get to you there um but i did have i would um kind of like what you hit on there the benefit of being in the fema community rating system i'd like to i'd like to know what that benefit is for our community members you know like i i'm just curious what the cost would be what the restrictions would be and then like like uh Commissioner Ward said, what's the benefit if you are in that community ratings or the FEMA rating system? And that would help kind of drive that a little bit. But if we've already done everything and we have the verbiage ready to go and we can insert it at a later time, that's fine. But much like he said, we may need to make sure that we don't drop it completely and miss out on a good opportunity for our residents.

Yeah, thank you, Chair and Mr. Vice Chair. And Dennis, I think, gave just a great explanation. But I think to synopsize, being a CRS community means that folks are going to get a break on their flood insurance for those who are living in the floodplain. I think we're the... think Jeff kind of was hinting at it where the juice is worth the squeeze kind of question is the benefit of those people getting the break and weighing that against the additional development regulations and restrictions that a city has to take on and and balancing that with the reduction in those in those flood insurance rates. That's usually where some of that policy discussion discussion comes up. Anyway, Dennis did a great job of explaining that, but I thought I would just put it in a two sentence package there.

Thanks, Stacey. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Council Member Ward, you had another question.

Yeah, specifically on the earthquake hazards. I'm looking at the verbiage. It very specifically, I believe it mentions tsunami hazards. And I think that the floodplain, the insurance flood map, I forgot what you called it. I'm sorry about the name of that. But the insurance flood map does basically cover the area that I believe, and again, I'm, you know, a little out of my depth here, but I poked around on the Washington Department of Natural Resources website, and they show a tsunami inundation zone over basically Windjammer Park, et cetera, et cetera. I'm just wondering, broadly, what sources do we use as authoritative to declare these critical areas? And what are the process for adding or removing critical areas that we call critical areas? That's the, you know, broad question number one. And what's the impact of, say, adding these areas that are covered? This is, I believe, the map that I was referring to. Thank you for bringing that up. What is the impact of recognizing this as a hazardous area or geologically hazardous area?

Both of those are excellent questions. I think to answer your first question, we rely a lot on the state agencies especially the ones with the expertise in the various components of the critical areas. Specifically here, this is the DNR information, and we rely heavily on their databases. This is the map I think you're referring to, Jeff, and I was able to track that down, and it's very similar to our flood zone, as you mentioned. And we... ARE LOOKING AT THEIR DATABASES TO BASICALLY ENHANCE OUR MAPPING SYSTEM. WHILE OUR MAPS THAT WE IDENTIFY AND INCLUDE IN OUR COMPREHENSIVE PLAN ARE GENERAL IN NATURE, I MEAN, OBVIOUSLY, IF WE HAVE A DEVELOPMENT THAT'S CLOSE TO A CRITICAL AREA, WE'LL WANT TO HAVE THEM INVESTIGATE IN MORE DEPTH WHETHER THERE'S AN IMPACT TO THAT SPECIFIC CRITICAL AREA, AND THAT'LL BE THE ONUS OF THE APPLICANT. But as far as our research is concerned, we rely heavily on the state agencies.

Is it worth laying that out in our own codes to make it very clear sort of that we have a formal process for recognizing these critical areas in an authoritative source that we go to? I can imagine, and again, with reference to my follow-up, I'm not sure what the impact is of identifying this as, you know, hazardous area or not, but I'd imagine this could get contentious if someone believes that, you know, there's an impact and they don't want it listed as such. Having these sources listed formally in our own codes potentially, you know, avoids that as a problem. Do we have anything like that? Do we have a process outline?

Yeah, we actually do have references in our code to the various guidance that the state agencies produce. I know we have wetlands identified based on the ecology manual, and we refer to that in that section of the code. We could certainly probably look at the geologically hazardous areas and do the same simply because I think their databases have increased and been enhanced over the years. So it's good data. And the more references we can make to the state level, I think the more protected we would be as a community.

Mr. Chair, I think maybe this will get to some of the question. You can tell me if it doesn't. When you go into the municipal code, at the end of those sections in the code, you'll see those references to the adopting ordinance and the date. Those adopting ordinances and the whereas clauses that actually adopt the code, will have references to the state law that authorizes the city to adopt locally and implement those critical areas. Though I think Dennis makes a good point about maybe stating it a little more succinctly in the code itself. Anyone can always go to those adopting ordinances and read the whereas clauses and know that we're authorized per RCW 36 XYZ to adopt and locally implement wetland geologic hazard and mitigation. Something maybe that you had mentioned earlier too I was thinking about and tell me if maybe this was maybe following your thought processes. And this is something I think Dennis and I were talking about earlier is You know, the critical areas code is about providing paths for mitigating impacts, negative impacts to identify critical areas because of development. Whereas, I sometimes think about earthquakes and tsunamis more in terms of hazard mitigation. what do we do when an emergency happens so I think of like the natural hazard mitigation plan that Island County works on etc and wonder if there may be some cross-pollination there with education about you know tsunami dangers and earthquake dangers that's my stream of consciousness for you for the moment

No, I think that the crossover to our emergency plans is huge here because I have poked through those. And again, I'm not an expert on them and I can't recall them directly off the top of my head. But I don't really remember tsunami inundation being a major consideration in a lot of our emergency planning. And just looking at this map right here, you can see some pretty critical infrastructure. What is it? Our water treatment is right next to Wind Generator Park and looks like it's completely covered by this. We have residential, commercial, and other city services all throughout there. Island County has offices down there, right? And of course the base there, And sorry we have the marina there and then of course the base there. It looks like a pretty pretty large potential impact zone. So I definitely agree that it'd be really great to cross pollinate into our emergency planning at a minimum. But I think this does get back to my second question of if we were to designate this but this actually on our critical areas map marked as a hazard. What is the impact. Is there an immediate direct impact in any way shape or form. or is it that we are now potentially laying those impacts out inside of our code and what that means now that we've identified these areas?

Well, I'll take a first stab at it, but Stacy, you can follow me up. I don't think as far as the planning process is concerned, it would impact us at this point in time. It would be more of a building issue that may have to be addressed. But other than that, Stacy, if you have any comments.

Yeah, if I can add, Principal Planner, if a map is added in our comp plan, and if we have minor code amendments, or even if we don't have any code language, when projects are proposed in these areas, we can use the SEPA to provide the applicant AVENUE FOR DOING SOME SORT OF ANALYSIS BEFORE CONSTRUCTION TO MITIGATE FOR IT. SO I THINK THAT'S THE KIND OF RELATIONSHIP A MAP WILL HAVE IF IT'S ADDED TO THE COMP PLAN.

OKAY. SO JUST TO BE CRYSTAL CLEAR, IS THERE AN IMMEDIATE IMPACT TO BUSINESSES AND RESIDENTS AND SERVICES THAT ARE THERE? or is this just a new building potential impact depending on what we do for code and permits approvals in the future? Oh, did I lose the connection?

I would say it's an impact to new structures and not a retrofit for basically existing structures.

Okay. If I can have one more follow up, sorry. I feel like I talk too much on these things, but I just want to ask Councilmember Stuckey, is the council aware of this level of flood and potential impact to critical services that this might impact? Has this ever been discussed as far as you know?

I would say bluntly, in my time on council, I don't recall that coming up. But that's part of the reason for the discussion here. But no, I do not believe that it has come up, at least in my time on council. No doubt it came out when going to the comp plan in the past, but going back to my five, six years, I don't recall it coming up.

Okay. Would you find it a valuable education thing for the council to get some sort of You know, since this appears to be new to the plan, and again, I'm not saying that we put this in or not, you know, just if this was something that we would consider putting in the plan, is this something that could be valuable to educate the council and the mayor on that there are these large potential tsunami areas that don't look like we've acknowledged them in the past?

Hmm. I think if there's an impact to doing this, when we're talking about future development, building new structures and stuff, sure. Aside from that, I mean, it could be okay for an education perspective, but I don't think we need that much time spent on it personally.

Okay, thanks. I think that answers all my questions. Thank you for the discussion. I appreciate that, everybody. Thank you.

Any other comments or questions? Council Member?

I just have one question. In regards to floodplain mapping, when we talk about the dredge that's coming up, assuming that dredge goes through as planned, does that affect the floodplain at all? As far as the mapping goes? You mean the marina dredging project? Correct. Does that have any impact on the floodplain?

No.

Okay. Thank you.

All right, any other questions, comments? Hearing none, Dennis, do you have anything else?

No, thank you for your time and good discussion. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. All right, moving on to our next item, our comprehensive plan vision statement presented by our principal planner, Kat Kamek. Kat?

good evening chair members of the commission council members tucky and we have a full planning department here and the presentation is going to be spread out with our planners i'll give some introductory comments and then pass it on so CAAC-CAMAC principal planner here to give an update on the comprehensive plan. As you are all aware, the city has determined that the comp plan needs to go through an environmental impact statement, so that is being prepared. That analysis and preparation will impact how we update our comprehensive plan. It may update our policies. It may impact other aspects of the plan. So we have to kind of hold some of our aspects of our update till that EIS is done. However, we can go ahead and discuss sections that are not necessarily impacted by the EIS and that's what we hope to do today and hopefully in the next few planning commission meetings we hope to bring forward sections that are not directly impacted by the EIS. So some of the things that we'll be bringing forward are the development regulations, and some critical area ordinance. Tonight you heard from Dennis about the critical area ordinance update. In future meetings, we may start to bring more language type after we've given this introduction so that you have a look at all the strikeout versions, all the changes that we're actually going to do to the code. Similarly, we have a lot of state mandates that are outside of our EIS update. So in our EIS update, we're updating densities, we're updating height requirements, and so on. Those are all our development regulations. However, the state has said during the update, you should consider these amendments, whatever you may do in your development regulations. These are some requirements you have to consider, and we have. I want to say 20 to 25 state-mandated updates that we have to consider. So we'll start bringing those forward to you as meetings in the next few months so that you can start to take a look at those as well. So while our consultants are preparing the EIS, staff is still working on the comp plan sections, like I said, that are not directly impacted by the EIS. And we are updating the language, data, statistics, all that type of stuff. So all of our planners, our team is looking at this and working on it. And as part of that review process, one of the discussion topics was the vision to the comprehensive plan. So that's the first chapter in the comprehensive plan. And as we were taking a look at it, You can see from the attachments that we provided in the report, I think I printed out the working copy of my comp plan as a PDF to the attachment. And when I looked at the vision at first, I saw the sections, right? There's economic, there's culture, there's schools, education. And because this update is so heavy on housing, I thought that housing needed to be something as part of that. So that was just my initial thought that opened up a discussion within our department. And we started looking at the vision statement. We started looking at other cities' vision. And we said, well, this is a good topic to discuss with the Planning Commission. So we did some research and we came up with some samples as a starting point for discussion. And so that's what we're here to present tonight. So with that being said, I'm going to hand it over to our planner, new planner here with the City of Oak Harbor, Carol Brobeck. It's nice to have new people on the comp plan, new eyes. We're getting new ideas. It's really great. So I thought this is a great way to talk about the vision because we're having this new perspective, and it's great to do that as part of this update. So please, Carol, if you can...

Good evening. CAC was about to introduce me as part of the new city of Chicago, I could hear. And that leads me into, I wanted to introduce myself first and foremost, give you a little bit of understanding of... where I'm coming from and my background, and then I'm actually going to take you into the next slide, which is just kind of giving an overview of what all of our staff has talked about together, some best practices for vision statements, and a little bit like a very high-level overview of what we are seeing in the vision statement in the 2016 plan and some things we might want to think about. So I'm your newest addition to the planning team. I come to you from a consulting agency, actually, in Chicago, where I primarily worked with suburban and rural communities. So I did completely different projects in the city and pretty much everything else in towns just like Oak Harbor. I spent eight years at the same place. firm and primarily I was working on comprehensive plans. So the fun thing is I get to jump into a comprehensive plan in a community where I get to focus all of my energy now and get to know all of the details. But I also have the benefit of having worked on a lot of plans in a different state with different challenges and all of that and bring that all here. So I've gone through from start to finish a lot of those projects and really worked with communities to do community engagement to figure out what's important to them. In some cases, those communities had not done a comprehensive plan in 20 or 30 years, not 10 years like you're doing. And then also really work with them to kind of solidify what that vision is for the future of their community. So with that, that is not the right direction. Oh, I think we skipped something. We'll come back to this. Okay. So When I have worked with communities on vision statements, and I've also read a lot of vision statements, a couple things come kind of rise to the top in what really works, what communities, you know, just your average resident, what kind of makes sense to them, and when they feel like it actually describes their community and what they're looking for. The best statements are short. meaning that there may be one to three sentences, no longer than a paragraph, and they focus on a big picture view. Big picture but is long range, so not in the next five years, but at least 10, perhaps 20 in many cases, of where are we trying to go in the community, what's going to get us to a better community, works better, it's more beautiful, it's more successful, all of those things that are important. So I said short, but I want to change that and say concise. Really trying to get down to the meat and the things that are really the root of what that community is looking to do or looking to be. You really want to make sure that there are unique assets and those are described in that statement because otherwise many communities want kind of all the same things. They want to be safe, they want to be happy, they want to be successful. They want to be the place where other people want to come visit. So to go the next step is really to highlight and identify what makes that community unique. What are the assets to build on? So again, these are what I have seen time and time again as being the most useful pieces or the most useful components of a vision statement and what we're really aiming for. When we, as a staff, we looked at our vision statement, I would call it more of a vision than a vision statement. It's two pages. We'd really tried to drill down into, okay, what was the community looking to try to do? How did we get to the point of the draft that we have at this stage? So I'm going to tell you a couple of things that we found that were good components, but what could maybe make it a little bit better? The first is that there is lots of description of community values. You know, as CAC identified, there are sections, you know, culture or maybe community, economic development, education. We know that we're missing housing in that, but that really starts to tell you the story already about what's important to the community. So we're not going to put that aside, but we want to get to the next step of really what makes this community special, unique, different than say another community that's looking to do similar things. The next is making sure that you're painting a picture of what the desired future is. So again, We may have a good level of, let's say, good economy right now, but kind of dependent as every community is on larger fluctuations. So just saying that we want to, you know, grow and improve the economy is not very specific to this community. So we want to make sure that we identify more closely what that improvement is or what the vision for that improvement is here. Next, so there's I think one sentence that talks about housing in more of a general sense and it's kind of hidden. So we want to bring that out a little bit more because that's a massive component of the update. It's something that we know as a nation but also as a state and as a small community that we're really looking to try to improve that. We have very targeted targeted efforts to try to improve affordability, improve the range of options so that people have more options where they may not have them now. So we want to bring that more to the forefront. Housing in many ways is how, you know, we think about housing as not just a unit. We're talking about numbers of units. But many times now we're talking about what does the housing do for creating community. Do we have a community of single family homes? Do we have a community of designed apartments or town homes, et cetera? So that is where we are trying to think critically about what does this community look for other than just increasing the units. The last thing is that, and I have, this is not unique to Oak Harbor. This is every community. There are words that kind of become buzzwords. Staff experiences this just in planning circles. There are buzzwords, they circulate for maybe five years, and then there's the next iteration of the buzzwords. We recognize that there are quite a few buzzwords in the existing vision. That tells us a couple of things. It says we're very attuned to some issues or some values of the community so much so that we wanted to put them in the vision. But what it also does is it lacks nuance for this community. So if we say we want to improve the urban design of the community, Again, it's not very specific to Oak Harbor. We need to know a little bit more about what aspects of urban design or what type of urban design are we looking for. So we're trying to move in a direction that identifies more of the crux of the issue rather than just throws out a buzzword that can mean very different things in very different communities. I've written down here what we need our environment to spark in our community. I'm happy to take questions as you have them, but I want to give my colleagues a chance to actually go through the samples that we have for you. I hope that this at least helps give a sense of what vision statements can do in many communities and also how we can make ours very specific to our community.

Thank you so much, Carol. Very quickly, those members and Mr. Vice Chair who are joining us online, I just emailed you, since it wasn't in the packet ahead of time, the three sample vision statements that we're about to talk about in a little more detail and reference. Just let me know if that didn't hit your email inbox, and we'll find another way to get it to you. Thank you.

but don't read them yet because it's supposed to be a surprise.

It's supposed to be a surprise.

It just hit my inbox. I haven't read it yet.

Okay, good. The concept here is to discuss and then read. I just want to make sure I've got everybody's full attention right now. I'm Ray Lindenberg, senior planner. It's been a while, so hello. And I'm going to go over kind of our ideas, our concepts for discussion tonight. And what I want to do first, and Keck did a really good job of kind of outlining all this, so I'm gonna just crib his notes here. But what we want to do is include these three draft vision statements or concepts for your review. And what we want to have is a discussion on the concepts themselves, not necessarily the specific words. We're trying to avoid doing a vision statement by committee, because we kind of feel like that's what's happened over the years, is you start out with a nice, concise vision statement. The next update comes around, they add some more words to it. Then some other people add some more words to it, and it becomes six pages long. So we're trying to avoid that here, and what we're trying to do, these concepts aren't intended to be like the be all end all, choose one, you know, and then we go on. They're provided as starting points to help identify preferred structure, tone, et cetera, and then we can carry forward into a final vision statement that will actually go into the document. And so concept number one is kind of intended to emphasize long-term stewardship, inclusivity, and future generations. Concept two is a people-centered format that is focused on what residents, businesses, and visitors should be able to experience in Oak Harbor. And concept three is a more concise, comprehensive plan vision statement that integrates Oak Harbor's place-based identity with housing, economy, environment, access, opportunity, a little bit more detail.

Excuse me.

So like I said, what I'll do is I'll go through these briefly and then we can utilize that as a kind of discussion starting off point to determine what path we want to choose here. So let me coordinate this. Okay, I just did that. Yes, thank you. Okay, concept number one. So this is the one that kind of emphasizes that long-term stewardship, inclusivity, and the future generations. And what we did is we utilized the land acknowledgement kind of beginning from time immemorial. Oak Harbor has been a home of many communities, both those natural and human created. And I'm not going to read the whole thing. I want to have that discussion. But we wanted to put the following guiding principles in there. So you have a statement of what it is we are, and then you have guiding principles that are foundational statements, kind of guiding growth and the development of the community. thoughtful choices with an eye to future generations, allowing for maintenance and development of affordable housing for all. And that, like I said, maintenance is kind of an important thing, is keeping what we have and adding more. Accessible neighborhoods with services in reach for all people, cars, bikes, walking, et cetera, including everyone. and opportunities for employment, education, recreation for all. And those are guiding principles. Those aren't the vision statement. And that's kind of the added detail that goes into this concept. Concept number two, Oak Harbor is Whidbey Island's premier waterfront city. Where? And then you have a bullet list. Again, keeping it concise, specific, and then being able to also kind of draw out guiding principles from that as well. Longtime residents and newcomers alike value hard work and perseverance, love our landscapes, and build strong social ties which stand the test of time. finding and affording housing suitable to their needs and access and support services that they need to lead a healthy life, moving around the community as safe, utilizing all techniques and methods of transit, making sure that we have a kind of established business and an economic element to that, and then visitors feeling welcome and coming back because it's a beautiful place to be. And then concept number three, this is kind of the paragraph form. Oak Harbor is Whidbey Island's premier waterfront community, a welcoming city rooted in history, diverse cultures, and proud military heritage. Again, trying to avoid those buzzwords and being very specific to Oak Harbor. So this one is the more concise comprehensive plan vision statement, the one that was kind of boiled down from what we had before. So now if you want to go ahead and open those emails for those of you who are online or if you have it in front of you, feel free to read through those in detail. But I did want to kind of hold your attention so that we can think about having a discussion rather than sitting and focusing on words, because that's not really the concept here tonight. The concept is to have ideas, concepts, and being able to discuss that rather than kind of nitpicking words and things. So if you do have any questions for me, I'm available for that. Otherwise, we will continue with, I believe, the scheduling discussion CAC.

Commissioner Ward?

First of all, I want to say thank you for the three koa version here. I love that they are very distinct and present kind of a different format and feel. I gotta say the things that immediately grabbed me when going through these were when it directly mentioned people. and how we will impact people. And that was also sort of one thing that grabbed me when looking at the existing vision statement. It said a lot of things that bits and pieces of Oak Harbor will look like, but it didn't talk about the people of Oak Harbor very specifically and how things are impacted. So if I had one broad comment, it would be focusing on the people of Oak Harbor that live here and that will live here, I think are a pretty important thing. and my second broad comment um is a while ago i sort of mentally came up with a way of rating cities um and i don't know if it helps or not for a vision statement but ultimately what determines a good city for me or not is whether or not the people feel like they would want to raise a family and that family would want to stay um and a vision that that calls out and says hey you can raise a family here and have opportunity and it doesn't mean you have to stay here but you'll probably want to um is a compelling vision statement to me um so those are my two broad ones thank you i do look forward to seeing how this evolves thank you thank you Well, I guess if no one's going to talk, is there, you said something, is there going to be a schedule like where this is kind of fleshed out and presented and voted on again or?

Yes. We're hoping that we get some comments from the Planning Commission tonight that will give us an idea and a direction that we can work towards. And if there are – so we'll come back either at the next meeting or a meeting after that. with a sort of a final recommendation from the Planning Commission on which format of these vision statements that you prefer so that we can include that in the compact.

OK, I'm sorry, Jack, I didn't realize that we were like, yeah, we'll have time to review these, but we can certainly discuss which which concept we like better, I'm sure.

Yeah, we can put it since we just gave you the handouts, we can have it on the next meeting agenda. as just a touch point, get feedback from you, and then we can work on it in the following meeting for a recommendation. I think we have time to do that. We'll have several other amendments that will come forward at the next meeting as well. And that gives you plenty of time if we put it on our next meeting agenda, or do you need something today? No, no, no. Just direction. We've heard about the People's Center. That tells me Concept 2 is in the frontrunner. If there are other ideas about any of the concepts, please let us know now. We'll just kind of start fine-tuning it and bringing it forward for further discussion. If you don't have any more questions on the...

I was reading as fast as I could, so these are... I would say three quarters baked thoughts. If we're talking about format, I like the format two as opposed to a paragraph format. I mean, if we're being frank, a lot of times these are things that you hope people at least glance over. And I think that they're more likely to read a little bit of it with a bullet point format as you have a format two. I do like, however, I know we don't get two in the weeds. The one thing I do like about I think it's format one or three, where one of them says, we seek to become. Basically making it clear that maybe we're not 100% there yet, but we're working towards getting there. My worry, playing the politician here, is sometimes these things can get thrown back at us a little bit. Just a random, you know, natural systems, wildlife, habitats, and open spaces are protected. Well, then the moment that we talk about maybe an open space no longer being an open space, someone can take this and say, well, wait a minute, but your vision statement says this, but you're going to take away that open space from us. So I get a little cautious with being too... specific. Even though I know we don't be totally vague. I'm just making sure the things we have, it's clear that this is what we're seeking to get to maybe not where we always are. But definitely format wise, I don't think the paragraph way is the way to go. I just think bullet points is easier to disseminate. Good to know. Good.

Commissioner Bacon.

Yes. I would like to say a few things. First of all, the number one thing that I did not like about the previous vision several pages from the previous iteration was that it said is. The vision statement is aspirational by definition. Therefore, we should be saying that we are this, but that this is what we plan to become. We're aspirational. And if we're saying we are this, then we've already achieved nirvana. We're perfect. And why are we planning for anything else? I think that just negates itself in its own logic. Looking at these three concepts, Concept three is very concise, but I feel that it is, it boils things down too much. I much prefer being able to make a statement and then have some bulleted followups that provide values that we wanna move towards. I think that that is a good way to angle where we're going it gives the rest of the document things to refer back to you know economic development does not have to necessarily refer to maintenance and development of affordable homes but it can refer to other values in that list right so these are things that can be checkboxed as we go through the whole comprehensive plan Also, the emphasis on long-term stewardship inclusivity and thinking about future generations is absolutely paramount to me. So I will be dead set against anything that doesn't take that first and foremost. We're not just planning for 20 years. We're planning for the rest of the existence of the city. We're laying the foundation for everything that is to come and to not think about it in any other way I think is futile and foolish. So I'd like to maintain that we're looking forward first. We don't wanna lose sight of where we've been, but going forward is the whole point of this document. And if we don't say that first and foremost, then what are we even doing? I think that's enough out of me for the moment. Thank you.

All right, thank you Thomas. Commissioner Ward.

Yeah, I just had a general question. I feel like you should know this, but I did just quickly look at the city website and I didn't see it. Do we have a slogan or a motto or does the city have something like that?

I think the premier waterfront community. It's on the sign. I think it's Whidbey Island's premier waterfront community.

I feel like if we do have a motto or slogan and it's not in our vision statement, either our vision statement should have it or the motto or slogan maybe should change. That'd be my, you know, just quick thought.

I agree. Did you have another? I saw your hand icon.

No, no, I think I made my comments before. But now since I've been prompted, I will say I think there's a distinction between content and format. So, you know, I think both of those are very important. As Council Member Stuckey pointed out, like how people read these things matters. And, you know, if they don't, it doesn't stand out to them. You know, so My vote for content is people-focused. The format, I'm not totally sure about. I will say the very first one grabbed me with its kind of in-your-face, immediate wording. And while Council Member Stuckey maybe said that he didn't like the format too much, I think that wording was striking and potentially valuable.

Well, I think there could be a happy medium. I totally agree that if you write a big paragraph, people aren't going to read it. They tend to read bullet points quicker. But when you just start out and you just have all bullet points, it feels a little unfinished. I think if you started with a very small paragraph, paragraph up front of what this is and then had the bullet points after and like they said people focused that's what we we need to focus on you know and I think that would be a good format and yeah I can see a concept one has that paragraph and then bullet list so I think I'm hearing that the Commission likes that layout format of introduction and like the

And then the bullet list is, of course, important. Concept two is people-centered, but right now it goes straight to the bullet list. So somewhat of a combination of concept one and two seems like it would meet a lot of the concerns that the commission has expressed.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, that sounds good. Great comments. Thank you for that. We'll put it on the next month's agenda as well so we can kind of take a look at where we are with some changes and then try and come with a recommendation following that. Before we wrap up, there was a slide about the schedule.

We have one more question. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Cody, go ahead.

Just a couple of follow-up thoughts. In the packet, I did see the schedule that was also here in the presentation, but it was completely illegible when I blew it up. So if we could get a different format producing that so that it's legible, that'd be really great. The other thing was for the format for I think we are kind of coming to a consensus on that format of the there's a statement and then there's the bullet points. I would say even in concept one, that statement's a little too long, right? We want to have it about one to two sentences. If there's a semicolon, it makes it that's essentially another sentence. And in the second sentence, there's two semicolons, meaning that that's essentially three sentences in one. I'm not trying to nitpick too much, but I do want to say that that does what makes it a little too long. And having worked on other vision statements, if it can be posted as a value, then we should include it in the value portion of the vision statement instead of trying to stick as much in as we can at the top. Keeping it to about four or five is the good number for the bullet points. But those sentences, they really do get too long and then I like reading things, but I know a lot of people don't like reading things. So I want to make sure that we can get people through the important guiding parts first. So I would say that it's really, really important that we don't do any semicolon two sentences blocked together and really keep that first paragraph at a max of two sentences. I second that brevity.

Thank you.

Yeah, that's good direction. Awesome.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. We will get the schedule. I'll send it in a PDF format. I think it was included in the PDF format, but it just for some reason maybe doesn't scale up when we package it for the packet. But I did want to quickly share that one slide just to give you an idea of what's coming up over the next six months. I know it's hard to read, but I think the schedule is tracking. comprehensive plan, the development regulations, and the EIS. So we're tracking several things. And I know it's really hard to see the colors in my slide, at least. But if you look down sort of six or seven columns in, you'll see that all of them have overlapping time frames for review. My apologies. I want to say right over here, yeah. On my monitor, I actually can see it, but I think the resolution here is difficult. But what I wanted to point out is in the next coming months, we have an overlap of all the things that we'll be reviewing. EIS, development regulations, and the comp plan rewrite. There's a lot of things overlapping. at least on the back end of what we'll be doing as staff. Once we have that work done, we'll be coming to the Planning Commission and City Council and starting to share that information. The draft EIS will be coming out right at the end of August, and we'll have to choose the preferred alternative, and then they'll be working on the final EIS, and we'll be having hearings and meetings, and we may propose during those times additional meetings in a given month. We'll try and keep the commissions informed as ahead as possible if we anticipate some of that. but we'll be squeezing a lot of material into each meeting. We'll try and space it out as best as we can, but the information is just going to come all at once, unfortunately, with the schedule and how many processes we're dealing with at the same time. So we'll try and keep you informed as best as possible as we go through, but I just wanted to point that out as part of the schedule, and I'll forward you the schedule in a better PDF format after the meeting. And that's all I had. If you have any questions, comments, happy to answer them.

No, just as long as we can get that schedule maybe by itself as a PDF. Yeah. Thank you. Anybody have anything?

I didn't mean to jump in front of the commission. I just wanted to share a few staffing updates with the commission if I could. First, I wanted to introduce another new staff member that I've got here this evening. This is Lorna Crandall. Lorna is joining us as the team's new administrative assistant. She's already adding great capacity to our team. You'll start seeing her at the planning commission meetings, start seeing her name on a some emails as she supports the team and supporting the planning commission as well as our other commission, the HPC and the work of the department. So yeah, please say hi to Lorna and welcome her and we're really happy to have her. I also wanted to let you know we have a slate of planning commission candidate interviews. scheduled over the next couple weeks uh council member stucky went out there and he did some he did some good work for us and so we've got some folks lined up to interview for these these empty seats that we have so we're excited to meet some folks who are interested in joining the planning commission and make some recommendations to city council And then I can't remember if I had mentioned this last time to the planning commission, but we have hired a new code enforcement officer and they are starting with us next Monday. So that's a really exciting position to fill, not for just, I mean, of course for the department, but also for the city as well. So anyway, just some updates for you happening within the department.

Two questions. With the code enforcement, that's still, remind me, that's full-time now?

Yes, that is a full-time position.

And the thought process of that position is currently our code enforcement is reactionary. It goes mostly on complaints. Is that, am I opening up the can of worms? Or is this going to be someone? Listen.

little bit of a can of worms okay like we don't have to discuss it yes I happy to discuss it further but just in in summary most cities because of you know you have a single code enforcement officer for example it is a complete base system there is some case law that recommends that cities are at the lowest risk when they do a complaint-based code enforcement system for all the reasons that you can you can imagine. So yeah, happy to discuss that further.

Yep. And then final question regarding any new appointments, assuming everything goes well, is the plan to get, because we only have counseling has one meeting for the next three months. We have workshops, but in a perfect world, you only have one meeting. Yeah. We have two workshops now and then one meet in a perfect world. Okay. Because I believe the next council meeting is, takes place in july before this planning commission meeting is it possible to have those appointments on that meeting so those commissioners could be at our next meeting in a perfect world yes maybe with our powers and charm combined we can convince admin to let us on the schedule Yeah, we could do it at a workshop. Typically, we do it at a meeting, but we could do a workshop. I'm just looking at when the interviews are. So it would be nice to be here and have a full room next time in a perfect world.

It would. Yeah, and part of the reason I say that, not totally facetiously, is just because there's a lot of lead time that's required for items to get on the agenda for the regular meetings. And so sometimes...

there's grace so we just may have i could be charming or persuasive thank you council member all right all right we'll count on that yeah that would be great if that could happen so yeah thank you very much for going out there and all right any more that's it okay our so then our next item is member comments any comments Not already made. Go ahead, Cody.

I would ask the administrative powers that be for as much lenience as possible to get those appointments in. I think we're at a crucial starting point with the EIS and the comp plan, and it would be really detrimental to the AND TO THE CITY AND TO THE POPULACE IF WE'RE BRINGING IN NEW MEMBERS TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION AFTER HAVING ALREADY REALLY DUG INTO THE BEGINNING OF THAT PROCESS. SO IF THERE'S ANY OBSTACLE TO MAKING IT HAPPEN AT THIS NEXT CITY COUNCIL MEETING, THEN I WOULD BEG THE ADMINISTRATIVE OVERLORD TO RECONSIDER. THANK YOU.

Thank you. Any other comments? Hearing none. Determination of future agenda items.

Thank you.

We're getting some feedback through my mic. Yeah, so the determination of future agenda items, item seven on our agenda, is that us making recommendations or? Well, I haven't seen that on an agenda before.

That's new to me as well. I apologize for not being prepared for that. Well, we know for certain we've got one item coming back for the next meeting, which is continued work on the vision statement. Yep, and then we're bringing the development regulation. We'll bring some development regulations back in July as well. So I would say for that section, future agenda items, a lot of that's going to be driven by the schedule that you were not able to see in your packet or on the screen, but you will soon be able to see in your email. So maybe we'll work on a little bit of rewording of that. But I also don't want the commission to feel like it or would squash any discussion about items to be brought up.

Okay. So I think this would be definitely a good topic when we have a fuller board. I've spent time in the past talking to planning commissioners because this board unfortunately has been a little bit of a revolving door. And one thing that's kind of stood out is not having a lot of control of what sort of things that are discussed. Now, there's a balance to that. What you don't want is seven people throwing out 20 ideas. We're not always cognizant of staff time. It's not a matter of just make it happen in 10 minutes. I mean, there's a lot that goes into it. But I don't think it's a bad idea to, once the new, this board is full, kind of establish what is in our purview. I mean, I know there's a little bit of gray area with administration a little bit, but what is in our purview, what's not in our purview, and then ask if there are things that we wish to be discussed when we're able to get to them and sensitive of staff time. Because right now we are in the middle of the comp plan. I remember being on this commission six years ago when we weren't. And there was a lot of randomness coming our way, which was kind of nice. I mean, it was nice to discuss different topics. So I think it's a good discussion to have with some guardrails.

Yes. And thank you so much, Councilmember. You did remind me that that's a discussion that I needed to forward upstairs among some, you know, potentially with our council, C-O-O-U-N-S-E-L, about some of the scope and guardrails and potentially have... that procedure outlined in the bylaws because because yeah because i agree i think we do want to have some kind of procedure established so that everyone is confident staff and commission members alike know how do i bring ideas to the forefront how does staff determine you know with council guidance when they will be discussed researched etc so thank you for the reminder that i was supposed to get on that okay uh cody

I just wanted to ask Stacey, how concrete is the schedule that you're going to be sending out? Are the dates absolutely immovable? Are those really, really hard? Or are we going to be able to see fluctuations and adjustments in the future?

Right. Thank you for that question, Commissioner. They are, I wouldn't say set in stone, but I will tell you we are going to try to hue as closely as we can. That schedule that you will see is, it's tightened. We are committing ourselves along with our consultant to very slim timelines as far as reviewing their work and then getting it making sure that it's being presented in a salient way to you so that we can move forward with this process and so we're committed to sort of keeping as much on schedule as we can so that we can deliver to council an updated comprehensive plan in early 2027 but that being said yeah not I wouldn't call it concrete though we're gonna do our best

Thank you. Jeff? Jeff, did you have your hand up?

I think I was on mute. Sorry about that. Stacey, I appreciate the potentially looking into a process for a more formal kind of suggestion system along those lines. I did have one just general comment. Have you reconsidered the format at all just of the meeting, not, I mean, of the meeting packet? Has that been discussed at all? And I just bring it up to say, you know, it may be helpful if there was a kind of a standard product that got thrown into the packet. And I understand this could be too much work to do. So it's an obvious like, no, that sounds like a lot of work with no value. But something that potentially informs the public and ourselves about things related to the planning commission that could help inform our understanding of impacts of code, things like potentially open permit lists and things of that nature that help us understand the scale and scope of the types of changes we'd be discussing. I don't know if I was rambling a little bit too much there, but hopefully you got the idea.

No, that's OK. Maybe we can kind of talk through that a little bit. The first thing that comes to mind is we do report to council on a monthly basis kind of just on our service delivery standards. And so we do report on open permits, particularly land use permits. We also report on things like number of inspections, building permits, et cetera. But I'm not sure I'm quite answering your question.

Yeah, if there are standard products that potentially could be included in the packet to help advertise it, make it more accessible to the public. So if we want to draw in comments and we want to draw in the public and get real input and feedback from the people of Oak Harbor, you know potentially giving them additional value by looking at our packets like oh yeah this is where i know i can find this kind of information monthly that kind of stuff might be valuable of course it's also staff time so i understand that it might not be something you want to do because there's a real cost to it no i i i think i might see where you're going and maybe maybe you and i can have maybe a little more conversation about it but maybe an immediate idea that comes to line uh mind is maybe

providing some some links people can go to like check check the comp plan website that's being updated continuously as it's the the library for update if you will in terms of public comment and red lines or you can check this you know these agendas here to check on you know up-to-date status of permits

Now I might be rambling, but that was my... No, I think my point was to get the idea thrown around, and if it had any traction, I'm sure that you'll go back and think about it and either throw it away or potentially evolve things. So I think my comment had the intended impact.

Good, okay.

If you can find something fun to throw in there that might be valuable, I think it'd be great to try some stuff.

Yeah, no, I... I'm intrigued, Jeff. I'm intrigued.

Would a link page, like just having all those links in there kind of at the end of the packet, would that meet your intent?

I can go back and kind of noodle over it with staff, and maybe Jeff and I can talk about it a little more, maybe present something to think about, but...

Yeah.

Yeah. Just, just again, my initial first blush thought at it.

Okay. Well, thank you. Good comment. Any, any other comments for future agenda items? All right. Next item is our next meeting is scheduled or next regular meeting is scheduled for July 14th, 2026. And with that, that concludes our agenda for today. I need a motion to adjourn.

I motion to adjourn the meeting.

And I second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All right. Meeting's adjourned. Thank you, everybody.