Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, good evening everyone and welcome to the June 10th uh city of Oak Harbor Planning Commission meeting. I'm going to call us to order at 6 p.m. And our first order of business is our roll call. All of our members are present except for Commissioner Kevin Wilson. Um moving right along, we will move to our approval of the May 13, 2025 uh meeting minutes. I will give you all a minute to look over them. If you have anything that you want to change, we can talk about that. Otherwise, when you're ready, I will take a motion to approve them. I'll make a motion to approve as written. Second. Moved by Fry, second by Bradley. Um, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Motion passes unanimously. Okay, moving right along to our public comment period. Uh during this time, folks may comment on subjects of interest not on the agenda or agenda items. To ensure those comments are recorded properly, please state your name clearly. Individual comments will be limited to three minutes. Uh during this time, you may also submit written comments uh at least two business days prior to uh at www.ocarbor.gov/public comment. Um, we received one public comment online and that is on display now.

Okay, thank you very much. So, we will move on to folks who want to comment in person first. Not seeing anybody, we will move to folks online. Not seeing anyone. going once, going twice, three times. Thank you all for your participation and thank you for sending in comments. Um our next item will be uh our two public hearings for tonight. Um our first will be a um proposed code amendment on chapter 1947 lane clearing. Um during these public hearings, interested parties will be given the opportunity to provide testimony or offer comments. Please record uh state your name into a microphone to ensure that your comments are recorded. Um so with that um our first public hearing is on our development regulations presented by um Ray Lindenberg or Dennis will be presented by our uh one of our planners uh Dennis Levver. Take it away when you're ready. All right. Thank you Mr. This is Dennis Le Fever. Uh good evening members of the commission. This is your final step for this proposed code amendment. Uh and the purpose of this amendment. First slide please Tim is because currently land clearing and grading are administered by two separate divisions in in the city. when uh the land clearing is administered by development services while the grading permitting is handled by the engineering division of public works. So we thought that since clearing and grading are so very closely linked

uh that shifting the land clearing responsibilities over to engineering would make for a much better process and um would assist in any applications that would come through for either land clearing or grading. I mean they can be looked at under one microscope basically. So the other purpose of this code amendment is to provide the regulatory guidance for both of these sections in one municipal code chapter. The reason for a new chapter is quite simple. and grading is closely linked to other geologically hazardous areas, other environmental issues such as flood damage prevention, vegetation preservation, storm water, water quality. So, it made good sense in looking at moving this into our title 20, which is our environmental title. I also looked at other communities as well and the majority of them had clearing and grading both in their environmental title. Uh it's also consistent with other environmental state laws such as the forest practices which the DNR administers and the shoreline management act which uh department of ecology administers. Um, and this will also assist in making the uh, permit process in title 19 a little bit smoother as um, Nolan will address actually in the next public hearing. So, the process to date, we certainly had coordination with the engineering department on this uh, code amendment. We did a a chapter preparation and we also prepared a state environment and policy act checklist. Uh we had a a determination and non-significance

issued. The appeal closed actually yesterday. Uh we did not receive any comments um on that sea. We also did our due diligence with the Department of Commerce where they require a 60-day notification for any proposed uh code amendments. Uh we bounced the proposed ordinance off of legal and they submitted um their comments back which have been incorporated into your draft. Plus, you've had an opportunity to review this proposed code amendment both at your January and your April meetings. And of course, tonight's public hearing and the city council also has had several touches on on this. They had uh a touch on their January meeting and also their April meeting and J uh July 1st will be their public hearing for approval of this amendment. the um tonight's public hearing, next slide please, Tim, is uh standardized under our municipal code 1820.272C, 272C which requires any amendment to development regulations or any regulations for that matter to have a public hearing before the planning commission and any action taken by the planning commission should take the form of a recommendation to the city council. Uh, this public hearing was duly noticed and staff's recommendation to the planning commission is to transmit a recommendation for approval. Now, staff has a recommended motion which is up on the last slide here and I would be happy to respond to any questions you might have. Okay. Thank you very Thank you very

much. Do any of you have any questions before we open the public hearing? Go for it. Yeah, I just have one real quick. If if you're consolidating this, which makes all the sense in the world to public works, does public works have the staffing for that or will there be additional staffing that's required to handle that? No, it's my understanding they have the staffing uh currently available to handle both clearing and grading. Um, so yes, they do have the staffing available. Okay, thank you. Anything else? Okay, thank you very much, Dennis. So, we will move along to open our public hearing. So, folks who want to comment on this or provide testimony, um, this is your opportunity. Not seeing one anyone online or in person. Going once, going twice, three times. Okay. So, hearing no one, we will move along and close the public hearing. Um, so yeah. So, if there's any further discussion we want to have, we can do that now. Otherwise, I will take a motion for for this ordinance or for this Yeah, for this amendment. There we go. I move to recommend approval to the city council of ordinance number 2025 repealing Oak Harbor Municipal Code Chapter 19.47 land clearing and adding chapter 20.15 of the Oak Harbor Municipal Code for land clearing and grading. Second. All right. Moved by Fry, second by Bradley. Any last thoughts before we vote?

Okay. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. All right. Motion passes unanimously. So we will move on to our next public hearing which is uh a public hearing on proposed code amendments to chapter 18.20 of Okoba Municipal Code related to procedural requirements. And this is going to be presented by our uh planner Nolan Grunka. take it away when you're ready. As stated, this is a proposal for an update to our chapter 1820 on review timelines. Uh this is prompted by uh new state legislation SB5290 which updated the local project review act chapter 3670BRCW um imposing new project permit review timelines that were effective January 1st, 2025. So the purpose of this proposal is to uh bring our code into compliance with the new requirements. Um while conducting a review of our code for compliance with these requirements, we also found a couple of vestigial references to um old zoning which has been uh removed from our code as well as an obsolete counterplete procedure which is not uh statutoily relevant. So we thought to remove it from the code. In all, there are seven sections of chapter 1820 that are being proposed to be amended. Um to give a summary of the changes, the code currently requires review to be completed within 120 days for type 2, three, and four permits. But per SB5290, um we have amended the code to read that uh 65 days is the maximum timeline for projects that do not require public notice, otherwise known as type one projects, 100 days for projects requiring public notice, type two projects, and 170 days for projects requiring a public hearing, type three and four per uh projects. Um type five

projects are exempt from these timelines. Um the legislation also specifies that days must specifically be counted as calendar days and not business days. This is a list of all the sections which are proposed to be amended in order to reflect these changes and staff is recommending approval of these amendments. Um this is the language that has been drafted for that approval and I'm happy to take any questions that you have. Very cool. short and sweet. Um, do either of you have any questions on this one? Okay. Um, one question I have, are you that sort of in the components that go from 120 to less than 120? Are you expecting that to be a strain on staff or do the permits that you are typically seeing are do those are those completed well before that or is that going to be a challenge for us? No, type one and type two permits are generally very straightforward. There can be difficulties with the timeline mostly just as a function of um how our permitting is organized and we're working with Llama our permitting software currently to um reflect those changes and how our our calendars and our organizational files are done. Um but in terms of the of the workload for processing those permits, we don't expect it to be a challenge. Very cool. All right. Thank you. Could you please explain what a type one, two, and three permit is? Yes. So, in chapter 1820, um all of the different project types that come through the city, you know, be it um you know, maybe an annexation or a short plat are classified into different project types based on um roughly how strenuous the requirements

for getting through that project process are. Um, type one permits are the most simple. They're usually administrative decisions that do not require public notice. Up to type five, which is the most complex, which are projects that require the full range of noticing as well as going to city council for approval. You know, in the middle, you have hearing examiner decisions. Type two projects are ones that require notice, but are still administrative decisions. So, it's just a it's just a leveling system that classifies permits in terms of their complexity and their statutory requirements. Okay. Any last questions for Nolan? Okay. So, we'll move right along and we'll open our public hearing for this item. Folks are if they want to comment are more than welcome to. Not seeing anyone online or in person. So, we'll move right along and close the public hearing. Thank you all for your comments. Um, so any uh we have a recommended motion. I'll take that when you're ready and then we can or if there's any more discussion that you all want to have. All right. I move to recommend approval of an amendment to chapter 18.20 of the OARBY Municipal Code pertaining to procedural requirements for permitting. I'll second that motion. Moved by Bradley, second by Fry. Any last thoughts? Any last comments? All right. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. All right. Motion passes unanimously. All right. With that, we are out of our public hearings and on to our discussion item. So, this is uh see you. This is our um 2025 major comprehensive plan update presented by our principal

planner Cat Kamak and take it away when you're ready. Thank you. Good evening uh members of the commission. Kamak senior or principal planner old habits. Um so here to update uh the planning commission on our comprehensive plan process where we are. Um the packet includes a letter that uh correspondence that we vetted with the city council that we sent over to Island County that captures uh some of the uh redistribution requests that uh the county uh had asked us to consider along with a map that uh kind of shows the uh city's thoughts on potential expansion areas. So, um, I have a few slides that, uh, hopefully will, uh, walk us through, uh, some of the foundation be behind the letter and then we can maybe have a, uh, discussion on any questions or thoughts that the commission has. So, growth targets, I think at the last planning commission meeting uh, in April, we talked about how important targets are. What's capacity? What's the difference between capacity and targets? And why do we need these targets? Because our 20-year plans are dependent on that. We used population counts uh and we still do, but that was the only number uh that we used uh in prior updates for the 20-year planning. Now the state has um uh asked all the counties and cities to consider housing units as a form of uh growth planning and not only just the number of housing units but also a breakdown of the income level that those housing uh targets need to serve. So, uh, not only are we kind

of looking at growth differently, looking at it in terms of not only population but housing units, but also a variety of housing types for the different income levels to plan for. So, the next 20-year plan is dependent on how you craft these policies is dependent on these growth targets. That's how we plan in our previous plans for a specific population target. We plan for growth targets. So, um this is the um kind of conversation that we are currently having with Island County because the original allocation for Oak Harbor and its UG or for Oak Harbor included the UG. So, they did not allocate only to the city, they allocated to the city and the UG. So in trying to determine the plan we can plan as a city we plan for the city limits and what zoning you can change what regulation you can change. So you have to determine how much of that growth you can take in the city and how much of that has to end up in the uninccorporated UG and then that allows for both the city and I county to start crafting plans to address those targets. So that is currently the conversation we're having back and forth with the county because it wasn't predetermined in the countywide planning policies on exactly what the city should numbers numbers in the city should be. So I have up here on the slide what is currently on the table and what we're talking about. So we have um Oak Harbor's targets and the 3,735 and the share of the total allocation and you can see it's mostly about

approximately 67%. Um that's the kind of the original shift that um the countywide planning policy was trying to do. uh today or in the historical past 60% of the growth went to Island County only less than 30% was in Oak Harbor. So it didn't make sense. So this planning um uh update is trying to plan to make that switch to try and get more growth in Oak Harbor and not as much in in in the rural parts of Island County. And so the shift was made with about 60 um plus percent being allocated to Okabar. So anyway within that allocation the city of Okabar is taking about 67% of the share and uh the rest is proposed to be accommodated in the UG which is approximately 1797 units. So um we shared with the planning commission at the last uh presentation not only about the targets but we also looked at the comparison between the land uh use options and the development regulations we did from uh the first try before the county requested the the redistribution and then we did a different uh land use option with higher heights and so on And um so we've done the development uh regulation changes and so on within the city and so now we are saying what can you know what are the areas for expansion. So um just to kind of uh go with the targets and how do you how do you

determine you know uh the areas for expansion and how can we propose as a city uh into the county's process for UG amendments. So there's a slight difference between doing a UG expansion when you're not doing a comprehensive plan update. So you do the comprehensive plan update every 8 to 10 years and that's when you're supposed to consider UG expansions based on the growth. However, the countywide planning policies and the RCW state allows for UG expansions to happen when an update is not in process. Now, that process was is normally initiated by a city because there's some sort of a change that is being demanded on that city. It could be a large commercial enterprise locating and wanting to acquire land that can generate jobs, economy, etc. that's coming at a time that is not an update that needs service. So at that time the process for how you change the UG is different. The city would have to request this amendment of the county along with the applicant and the process of trying to justify that is a different process. When you do it as part of the update, it is the county's responsibility to accommodate these U.J expansions and look at them from a broader county and policy standpoint for the overall county. And in that process, the county is actually making the determination. The cities are providing input. It's not a request, so to speak. providing input into how this expansion can be accommodated in the UG. So the map that was included along with the

letter is the starting point where the city says we understand that there's a deficit in the UG there. Um existing UG can accommodate only 464 units. There's a deficit for about 1333 and we're so the expansion question is out there. So how do you do that? How do you determine that? So in Oak Harbor's input, we took information from the county's letter in which they calculated the existing capacity which is they calculated that as six units per acre. So we use that six unit per acre as a foundation measure and how many and determined how many acres you need for 1333 units and came up with 222 acres approximately to accommodate the residential growth. So that's kind of the baseline number that the that we need to provide the county input on. you know, at least 222 acres and I'll go through um and and let you know how that area increased to where it is in the letter. So, in considering any UG expansions, I think there are RCWs and the countywide planning policies that have some process on how do you go about if there is an expansion in need, how do you go about doing it? And one of the first things you have to consider is trade. Is there any land in the existing U.J that could be traded for equal areas and same land use and can you accommodate it that way without having to actually expand it you know and then if trade doesn't work then

you talk about how do you expand. So in our letter, we took the opportunity to address both of those um because there are some areas in the city's uh existing UG that are challenging to develop because of the regulations and restrictions on them that if you trade those that you may have more opportunities elsewhere. So we've included a trade portion in the letter and also expansion areas and we chose expansion areas by contiguity and serviceability and also uh serviceable by transit and so on. So um serviceability means that you don't have to build big public infrastructure systems to make that area serviceable. in the sense we have an existing sewer or water and a devel if a property owner is within this area and they want to connect to the sewer to develop they don't have to build a force main or even if they have to it's a direct connection into one of our lines and it doesn't have terrain challenges that they have to go through and some of these could be real challenges it could be in our UG forever and never develop if you don't have the right serviceability uh for them. So the the areas which basically chose chosen based on uh some of these criteria. So I'll go over some of these areas um on the map that was provided. So this was the map that was attached in the letter and I'll go over some of them. I may flip back and forth uh just based on what uh we're talking about. So this is the area that's in the UG. Uh this is by

Present Harbor Road and Torpedo Road about and it's designated as commercial uh about 26 acres or so. This uh property is right adjacent to the accident potential zone. The accident potential zone probably clips the the top right hand corner of that uh of that area. But it's also in the high noise area which is also an additional restriction. So you not only have the accident potential zone which restricts uses but you also have it in a high noise area which takes out even other uses from being able to locate there. So it's very difficult uh given the infrastructure that you have to build to get something really viable in terms of commercial. So, this area has been sitting for quite a bit and uh we think that it would be a good opportunity to trade this land maybe for other commercial land that can potentially not have these restrictions and take on mixed uses and other things that still that will support um our our goals and policies. So that's the the reason for kind of considering this trade and where will this commercial land where will the receiving land be and I think that land could be uh a combination of uh the highway 20 what calling the water area or the Fort Nent and Boone Road area. Um so these could be the receiving areas for that trade. Uh but these areas have also been um uh located or identified as uh fairly serviceable and

and contiguous to the existing city limit. So contiguous to the existing city limit is important because it gives more options for connecting infrastructure. So for example this area you have almost two sides of the city uh of of this area contiguous with the city limits which means multiple property owners have the chance of getting development proposals going because they're contiguous to the city and connect can connect to the sewer. So there's more options here and so um this was one of the areas that was more favored for expansion. uh so was this area. This area actually slopes away from Highway 20 and um actually is uh gets challenging the bigger and bigger you get with this area. So, we looked at what it would take to connect to services either along 20 or uh there's a sewer connection I think that goes by Eagle Vista and it seemed like this area is the most efficient and it is also contiguous we said uh to the north for multiple properties to take advantage of that. So those were the areas that were included based on uh those criteria and the other area of interest was the uh Hello Road and Crosby Avenue. This is again uh a key corner uh in the city that could be uh more than it is right now. uh very close to services, very serviceable and um so uh this is mostly comprised of wetlands but there are properties uh uh

the there are there is terrain I I would say along the along the street frontages that could potentially take advantage of that. Unfortunately, these properties are large and will have to when you calculate the area that you take into account the area that is also encompassed by wetlands. So, um it gives them density bonuses and so on to consider and could potentially develop into a neighborhood center or a neighborhood corner. uh again with some commercial proposed on the corner u u just calculated out of existing lots that are there. So those were the three areas actually um that was suggested to the city council and during our meeting uh at uh with the city council. The council wanted to include areas by Fort Nent sorry by Swanttown Road. Now originally uh staff did not propose any expansions in this area because lands here are not contiguous to the city limit. They are contiguous to the UG boundary. They're not contiguous to the city and they have uh lands that are regulated in the county as uh um rural lands of significance and so they are low priority for development and UG um inclusions. But um the city council felt strongly that this is potentially one of the best strategies you can apply if you want to have development here or demand for development here bring sewer along Swantown and then if you can get the sewer extensions then people in the Hillrest area will

have more access to that sewer and have more ability to connect to it. And so there was some strategic thinking from the council standpoint on including these areas in as well. And think staff recognized that it's a good strategic move. However, this may not add to our target add capacity. Just because it's not contiguous, it's hard to get them the services that they need uh under our current policies. So this was proposed in the letter as an expansion option. So I think uh if you look at the letter that that if so in the county's consideration for UG expansion they can take into account a lot of criteria. They'll have to of course make sure they meet the minimum criteria of meeting all the RCWs and the countywide planning policies. But if they want to support more growth in urban areas as opposed to rural areas and want to apply more strategies in terms of how to direct growth to Okar, these are the options for they have many options to consider. So the city has provided more than 222 acres worth of suggestion. It's up to the county to now look at it to see what would best fit with the numbers that they are thinking and where it should be. And that's their it's their authority. They they are the ones that vote on where the UG should be. It's not the city council that that's that does that. It's the county commissioners. So this is our recommendation to them. How we achieve these targets in the future. all of that. We are recommending that we talk about it outside of our comp plan process because we cannot try and solve all of those issues before we update our comp plan. Let's agree on the targets. Let's plan for those targets. Let's move

ahead and how we get to the targets. We can call out in each of our individual plans in terms of what process we would follow to try and come to an agreement on how targets could be achieved in the UG. So that is kind of the path forward at least we think but we are still in mediation and we don't know how things will come out of it. I'll keep you updated but this is our current targets that are on the table right now. So um here's just a table. This is not included in your in your letter. I thought I'll just kind of share with you kind of in a table form uh you know what's the breakdown of the of the acres. You know this is the the uh trade uh at Crescent Harbor 26 acres and then the expansion areas by Crosby and Heler residential and commercial acreages are broken down uh again Fort Ment and Boon Road Waterloo and SR20 and with just this expansion area it's about 250 again about 28 acres more than the 222. So again options there now 40 acres of commercial in the expansion areas out of which 26 would be trade. So the expansion would be about 14 acres of commercial for a total of 290. Now, the expansion option on Swantown was just calculated separately just to give the county the option to consider that separately if they wanted to with the residential being at 71 acres and commercial being 8 acres. And there is uh land designated as LRS as 39 which you know currently I don't think we can designate that as either residential or commercial unless the county wants to

change that designation. So we've left that open uh cuz it's an unknown unknown land use. We cannot calculate any units on them. So we've just identified that as separate. So that's how we get the 434 acres that's currently in the letter. So just wanted to give you a breakdown of that. So what if we agree uh what are the next steps? The next steps would be first of all we have to agree and finalize the growth targets. That's our key. That's what moves our needle forward and then once we finalize that we'll start to draft uh develop a draft plan. But what does it take to develop the draft plan? We'll have to draft a climate change element as well. We still have two OPAC meetings left. There's a community survey still that'll probably go out. We have open houses that are still planned because we got to go out to the community and talk about all these land use options and all of these expansions, get input from them and then come back here and make a decision. So, we still have all of that to do. Only after we establish the targets can we go out and engage the community on on on that and get their input. So, we have all of that. There's also the potential determination of significance um that is possible. you know, we are going to exceed our population uh threshold that our original EIS for the comp plan had and we're taking on substantial growth. I think those are two good reasons to consider whether this is significant enough for us to do to evaluate and see alternatives. So, that's what the EIS will do. Uh it'll hopefully run concurrently with the update. It'll evaluate some alternatives. We pick an alternative, do a final EIS, draft plan, final plan. So, we got a lot of steps more to go. Our plan was to complete this by December 2025.

I'm not sure if we'll hit that mark. We may be a few months over at this time just because of some of the challenges we've had. I'm hoping that we can we can get to these growth targets and then it'll be full speed on trying to there'll be a lot of uh I'll be here again uh every planning commission meeting and city council meeting giving you guys updates. There'll be a lot of things to consider in the next year. So those are the next steps. So with that I'll end my presentation and open it out for questions and comments. Okay. Thank you very much. Anyone want to start off? Go for it. Hey, thanks Kek. I appreciate that. It was a good brief. Um, looking at the wilder side, I know you was talking about the little box on the map that's orangeed out with the yellow stripes is that that's not in the city limits. it's actually part of the urban grow for the county but that it's restricted and also it would make it difficult for hooking up utilities because our utilities don't run out that far. So on the wilder 71 acres that you have green asterised that's even further outside the city limits. How would that tie in? Would we be able to take if if the county adopts this trade and that happens to be one of them? Not saying it is, but if it was one of them, would the city limits exceed out to that new area or is that still going to be county land? It'll be county land. So why would we need to send utilities out there? It would just be an option if they want to pay for it or Yeah. Well, they would have to get contiguous first before we provide sewer. That's the challenge with having this this area. It'll add capacity in

the sense we've added capacity to the UG, but will we be able to meet our 20-year targets? Will we be able to get sewer to there in 20 years? don't know that. That's why I say it'll add capacity. It may not help with meeting the 222 unit target. We have to get contiguous either through annexations here and annexing this land which is LRS. That's why I think it's going to be challenging. The county will have to justify why it's okay here. Now, there are some clauses in the countywide planning policies that said that says that lands such as this if it provides contiguity to developable land, it should be considered. So, there are some clauses to support that. Now, we're providing this as an option above the 222. So, they should be really willing to support OKAR or growth in the city or in urban areas more than the county. And that's these are the strategies that will help them I think. Okay. The second one is on Waterlue. Looks like it's got wetlands on it. How would that impact us wanting to do a trade with the county? Would it have any impact on that as far as building? So those are the areas for expansion and um there are some clauses to remove critical areas from expansion areas if we wanted to. Uh again, um we have uh regulations so to to be able to mitigate and have density transfers or bonuses um you know away from the wetlands when you build. So there are several ways that we can address that, but this is just a starting point and if the county

brings up critical areas and so on, then we'll discuss more about how to how to handle that. Right now, it's just a a shotgun approach, so to speak. It's just try and get acreage out there and start the discussion. Okay. And my last question is is more of a request. Uh after negotiations with the county, is there anything are there any uh studies that we're going to look at for traffic after we find out where we're looking at putting these because depending upon where we negotiate and if all the whatifs once that's all said and done looking like up by Walmart, that's a congested area. Out on Highway 20 north, just as you're heading out of town, that's a really significant congested area. So, wherever we build, I would recommend that we do a new traffic study. Uh I know we did one, what was it last year where they briefed us on the bicycle lanes and the bus routes and all that. I I I would highly encourage us to to do another one and the EIS process that I um the potential EIS route if we go down that route that is one of the big studies that they will do as part of that is the transportation impacts of the expansion and then the 20-year development potential and all that. Perfect. And I think that's all I have right now. Um, I just wanted to add that the mayor and I also attend and COG and so we participate regularly with Island County on talking about road projects and where we prioritize in that and then we work very closely with the city engineer and the public works director on that and they also participate in county meetings around road projects. So, we're trying to stay very heavily involved in that and make

sure that we're advocating for the needs of this community. Awesome. Thank you. Um, I just to sort of tag on to that, could you talk a little bit more about like the Hillrest area and why we as the city are interested in having sort of utility lines run through it and what that why we're sort of positioning ourselves to do that now rather than or I guess instead of leaving it well enough alone or if there's a bigger story there. Yeah, absolutely. So, um the underlying principle is that all areas in the UG eventually should become part of the city. That is basically why you have them in the urban growth area. And I think originally when they drew the UG there may have been some criteria that already urbanized areas should be in a UG and not outside. So since uh these lands were already developed and they were developed outside the city. They don't have city sewer. They don't have city water. They have their own water district and most of them are on septic systems, but they're there and so they are included in the UG. So eventually they should all be part of the city. And we have several other pockets and maybe the bigger map shows that. So we have these areas, all these areas, all these areas that are already developed that are in in the within the UG within the city but not in the city limits. And so eventually you want to get services to them and bring them into

the city. But what there is no economic drive or incentive for the city to proactively build a sewer system and bring them in just because of the cost and the economics of it. So the policy is that these areas will eventually get to the end of their um uh facility life span and would want to connect to the city and the city would be happy to annex and provide that sewer or water connection that they need. There are several challenges to doing this because there are probably water district uh homeowners associations uh you know common agreements between all the people to get sewer. So a lot of this is uh not ripe yet in the sense for uh discussion at this time in terms of how do you bring them in as a whole. And if you do bring them in as a whole then as a city you have to find ways to use your capital facilities plan to try and fund them with public projects. Right? So the ideal way for the city to be efficient about it is to actually bring these properties in one by one as long as they're contiguous. You get them to uh the applicant is motivated to get a sewer connection and if you can bring sewer public sewer close to them because I mean properties somewhere in the middle here has a septic system failure it's difficult to get to a city sewer. they have to cross so many other private properties or whatever to get there and they're bearing the expense of it till other people connect. Now we have lake

commerce agreement and so on where a property owner can put a sewer connection in and then the subsequent connections will pay back for uh that money that you that you put in. So we have systems for that. But that's kind of how most of these annexations will occur or they will come to city services is by connecting to those systems. So the strategy is let's try and get a public sewer system as close as possible to them. That is the strategy and the and the way that you would do it is to create uh demand past their area so that they're able to fund or motivated to extend the the infrastructure to serve them in the process. There's benefit public benefit in getting sw to the proximity. Is there am I did I get most? Okay. So yeah, perfect. Thank you very much. You had some questions. Okay. Um I think that was my I guess so going back to the wetland conversation, right? Is there you had mentioned that the city has density bonuses and other sort of incentives within our code to facilitate that conservation while also facilitating housing goals or or however it winds up. On the other side, are there any particularly I guess strong reasons why we would want to leave wetlands in the county? let them, you know, let their regulations handle that and or is it in do we think that it's better to to take that on ourselves and navigate it through our process? Uh, good question. Um, I think you would want to determine on a case-byase basis. I don't know if you want to have a general policy that

you don't want to bring any more wetlands into the city. I think they are green areas. they are vital areas of the ecosystem and that you bring them in when appropriate and I think the regulations in the city and county are not that different in terms of protecting these resources. They're comparable uh and they are uh equal in most instances to try and protect these resources. So I think it shouldn't be a barrier in thinking that somehow critical areas such as these will do better off in the county than they will do in the city. I think there are regulations to address them similarly in both areas. So, um I I don't think it should you can look at it on a case-by case basis and see if something makes sense in this area if it should be out and we're willing to do that. Um but um I think overall the policy should be u you know you bring them in if they're if they're integral to you know the land and the development around it. Cool. Very great. Thank you very much. Um, okay. Any last thoughts? Any last questions? Okay. Well, thank you for the update. All right. Thank you. All right. With that, um, we will move along to our, uh, member comments. One of the things that I have on my thing on my piece of paper is yeah that we um don't have enough discussion material for our July meeting. And so um if we want to cancel that meeting and have our next meeting in August um we entertain a motion for that. make a motion that we cancel the meeting for July 8th and schedule the next meeting for the 12th of August.

Second. All right. Moved by Fry, second by Bradley. Um all those in favor? I. All right. Motion passes unanimously. So if there's um does anyone have any other member comments before we start to wrap up? Okay, very cool. So, with that, our our next scheduled meeting is going to be August 12th, 2025. Maybe we'll have a new planning director. And uh with that, I will take a motion to adjurnn. I make a motion we adjourn. Second. Moved by Fry, second by Bradley. All those in favor? I All right, it is 653.