Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I forgot the speaker. Thank you. Good evening and welcome to the Thursday, July 14th, 2026 meeting of the Oak Harbor Planning Commission. As you can see, we have a packed house today. We have several new members, so I'll go through attendance really quickly and then afterwards we can get a quick introduction from the new members. So, you know, Jeff Ward. I'm here, obviously. Kevin Wilson is currently absent. Cody Backen.

Here.

John Chazar. And if I pronounce your name wrong, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry about that.

Present. And that's correct.

All right. Donna Kendall.

Present.

Ryan Bradley is unfortunately absent today. uh oops did i miss no i didn't uh and david guy i'm also present and our ex-officio uh brian stuckey is present um we are president all except for two are president accounted for i would love to get a chance to introduce our three new members of the council uh or not the council the commission today If I could just start off with John, could you say hello?

Sure. John Chazar. I've been an Oak Harbor resident officially for eight years. I was served on the planning commission 22 through 24 prior to this before getting called away for a job in Louisiana where I commuted back and forth to Oak Harbor for two years. But I'm back, I'm retired, and I'm glad to be back on the commission.

Well, welcome back to the commission, and thank you for coming back. That's a really big help, and I really look forward to your experience on this. I'm going to get that wrong all night long. David, could you go next?

Yeah, my name is David Guy. I've been a resident of Oak Harbor for just over 11 years. Retired from the Navy here and made this home after that. Currently work for the county as a deputy assessor and pretty excited to get involved in this commission and see how we can move forward.

Well, thank you. Welcome. And last but not least, obviously, Donna, can you introduce yourself?

Hi, I'm Donna Kendall. I've lived in Oak Harbor for about two and a half, going on three years, so I'm fairly new. Background on me, I've worked in real estate for about six years, newly licensed back in April. Yeah, I'm excited. This is my first time serving on a commission, so yeah, excited to be here. Thank you.

Well, thank you again. And thank you to all three of our new members for joining. It's super important. Um, we've been pretty light on members and it's a pretty important thing for us to have real input from the community. Um, with that, I'd like to give you our first agenda item, um, approval of the agenda. Um, and bear with me that my first time running the chair thing, uh, do I hear a motion to approve the agenda?

I moved to approve the agenda.

Commissioner Backen has given a motion. Do I have a motion to second? Second. Commissioner Chazar is second. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

And I believe that was all present are in favor. So the agenda is approved. um next menu our next menu next uh item on the agenda is the approval of the june 9th 2026 minutes and uh i just like first of all to uh ask for the members that were not here um you are aware that if uh you weren't here it it's generally uh abstain if you weren't here unless you have reviewed the online video of it. And have you all reviewed the online video? Yes. Okay. So with that, is there any discussion for the June 9th minutes? All right. Then I ask for a motion to approve them.

I'll move to approve the June 9th, 2026 minutes.

Commissioner Backen has given a motion. And Commissioner Guy has seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye. And that's a unanimous approval on the minutes for June 9th. Moving right along, the next item is the public comment. During this time citizens may comment on suggestions of interest not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak to an item on the agenda you will have the opportunity to do so when that 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 setting limits. Please limit comments to three minutes to ensure all have sufficient time to speak. Public comments may also be submitted online at least two business days in advance of the meeting. I don't see anyone here. Did anyone sign up that's not here? Or do we have any online comments?

I haven't received any online comments.

Okay. And at this time, it does not look like there's any comments for today's meeting. Sorry. Yeah, so just in case there's anyone else that missed it, this is the time for comments, giving it one more chance. So no one hiding behind the door in the final time. I don't hear any comments. So, uh, with that, we'll close the public comment period. Okay. Moving on to our next agenda item. This is the, uh, discussion action presentation report items. Um, and the first item here is a cover memo that I believe, uh, our principal planner, uh, cat Camac was going to be presenting. Correct. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, Mr. Vice chair and greening members of the commission, uh, CAC Mac principal planner. Uh, welcome. Welcome to the planning commission. Uh, what I'm going to cover today is, uh, all the items under discussion. That's generally a comprehensive plan discussion, and I'll go through my presentation. Uh, you can consider it as one, uh, one topic for today's discussion. Again, welcome to all the new members. You're coming in to the comprehensive plan process. The planning commission is very integral and a key component of our planning process, especially for the comp plan. And the planning commission is responsible for the long range planning, as well as the text amendments and policies that relate to a lot of aspects of the city. and also has the ability to hold public hearings. So welcome, and we'll jump right into it. You're going to kind of jump off the deep end, so to speak. I will try my best to get you caught up as best as we can. We've covered a lot of material. The process is already ongoing for about two years. So I'll try and give you an overview so that The things that we're discussing today and from here onwards doesn't seem very strange, and hopefully you'll get familiar with it. So for today's meeting, we're going to cover some discussion about the vision statement. And as you have all watched the last meeting, we've had some discussions already on the vision. So we're in the middle of that discussion. There was a memo provided in the packet that kind of outlines the concepts before and the changes, so we'll get into that discussion a little bit. Also introducing to you today is the development regulation changes that are outside of our EIS. So I'll go over a little bit on what we're doing in the comp plan and what the EIS process, environmental impact statement, for the comprehensive plan is undergoing right now, and I'll give you a little bit. what what that is and that is considering some development regulation changes and its impacts but outside of all of the eis there are some state bills that require some the cities to up update their legislation to meet state law. And so, no matter what happens with the EIS, these are some development regulations that we have to consider as part of this update. So we're just kind of parceling it as separate and just providing that information today from a state law level. What does the state law require? Now, for a city, our code may cover it, and some of it may not be covered, and we'll kind of talk about that a little bit. So again, what we want to do with the vision statement today is to just see the, review the proposed direction, look at the wording, the structure, get some feedback and recommendations from you as we move forward. And then the development regulations, just want to introduce, like I said, the state law topics related to that and try through discussion to get you up to speed on what's required. And if you have any questions, concerns, we can chat about that. So I know you're diving in in the middle of the process, but I thought I'll go over quickly where we started, what are the things that we've covered as part of a comp plan process so that you know some of the things that have already been done and what we need to do. So the process began back in 2024. And one of the first few things that you do as part of the planning process is to produce land capacity analysis. which looks at how much capacity does the city have with current regulations for housing. And when we did that, we realized that we don't have quite adequate capacity for the allocations that have been allocated for 20 years through the countywide planning policies. So that starts a whole process of what do you do if you don't have capacity. And so you look at development regulation changes or propose some rezonings that you think can help it. And so you have some initial proposals that you make in order to kind of say, with these changes, we can tackle some additional capacity. And so all these documents that were generated as part of that is then we have to use these documents to work with the county to see where this housing would go. Would it go in the city or would it go in the city's UGA? The city's UGA is under the jurisdiction of the county. The city does not have any jurisdiction or authority to permit housing in the UGA because it's county land. So we had to work with the county and the county sees the growth and development differently than we do. And in that discussion, we learned a lot about, and the state got involved in it too, the challenges with the UGA focal cover especially the areas that are completely surrounded and developed. Those are the areas that became challenges. It was hard for the state and the county to look past those areas to consider where housing would go. And because there were no adequate plans or capital facilities or anything planned for that, the county didn't have enough information to try and accommodate growth. So they did a county white planning policy amendment change, reduction in population, which I think you probably all are somewhat familiar with because it went through a process in the county. The population got reduced and the allocations got reduced. But in the process, the city was able to annex about 80 acres of land into the city so that that 80 acres that was sitting in the county can be used in the city's capacity analysis. So this is what all took place. in 2025 and the annexation took place in 2026. While as we were going through this process, the housing allocations and the population projections started to indicate that our impacts from something, you know, for planning to accommodate this higher allocation is going to create impacts. And these impacts, we have to address them. So how do we address these impacts? So when the city did a comprehensive plan back in 1993, the first one adopted under GMA, all the cities had to do an environmental impact statement. So it's basically a glorified form of SEPA. So if you heard of SEPA, if you do a project, a subdivision, or a housing project today in the city or in any city, you would have to do a SEPA analysis to show that your project is meeting all the environmental requirements and you're mitigating for it. There are similar requirements for non-project action as well, which is plans and sometimes even text amendments. And the original SEPA, original comprehensive plan had a EIS, which is an alternate for SEPA. it evaluated all the impacts. Well, that SEPA, or that Environmental Impact Statement, was valid for only 20 years. And that expired in 2013. However, that analysis accounted for more population than we have today. So even though the document expired, the impacts counted for more population. So we consider that the comp plan to be still within those circumstances for mitigating development. However, with this update, we exceed the thresholds. And so we have to do an EIS, which is again a form of SEPA where we consider alternatives. And that will be coming forward to the Planning Commission in the next two or three months, and we'll bring that forward. And that's happening on the site as we speak. And until that comes out, we can't really move on the rest of the comp plan policies because the impacts identified by that document has to be incorporated into the comp plan for final selection. So we've got some work to do, and that's yet to come. So that's what the EIS is going on as we speak. And Kim Lee Horn, the consultants who are helping us with the comprehensive plan, is doing the EIS for us. So it's kind of seamless with the update, and it's working time-wise. Hopefully it will work in our favor. So currently we're looking at things that are outside of the EIS. What are the things that we can move forward on while the EIS is being prepared? And the vision is a great example. It doesn't NOTHING IN THE EIS WILL IMPACT WHAT THE CITY'S VISION IS AND OF COURSE THE DEVELOPMENT REGULATIONS THAT I JUST MENTIONED. SO THAT IS A SHORT STORY ABOUT WHERE WE ARE IN THE PROCESS. SO WE'LL JUMP INTO THE VISION DISCUSSION FOR TODAY. SO WE STARTED OFF WITH THREE CONCEPTS. WE HAD SOME DISCUSSION AT THE LAST MEETING. THE PLANNING COMMISSION'S INPUT WAS A LIKE CONCEPT ONE AND TWO. They had a preference for the format of concept one. They liked the people-centered clauses in concept two. Concept three was too short and didn't capture, they thought, the essence of what we want to say. There was a comment about not having open space included in as an important element. And also some comments about how short the planning commission would like it. Five bullets was what the Planning Commission suggested. Now, the proposed vision is a combination the staff tried as best to incorporate these comments from the Planning Commission and capture the essence of it. However, we ended up with seven bullets instead of five. And so the statement that one of the planners made was five is neat but seven is more complete seems more complete now so but we can have a discussion on this and that's one of the questions we have it's a it's really a choice and we can still continue to work on it but currently the vision kind of has these seven sort of pillars or or focuses i want to say community ties that talks about The. the long-term residents and coming back of residents, the housing services, affordability, and for housing for all service types, movement of people within the community, safe movement, the workforce and economy, natural systems, shorelines, critical areas, habitat, open space, and then the future generations, how to create growth that strengthens what is unique in Elk Harbor, and then the visitors and the identity that Oak Harbor wants to serve with its tourists. So that's kind of the statement that the current vision has. we've included. So before we jump into the development regulations, maybe we should have a quick discussion about the vision, get your thoughts and inputs, and then we can kind of jump into the development regulations. This is kind of the four, one of the conversations that we had when we were trying to combine these concepts was, you know, whether that opening statement somehow some people thought that that didn't sound or didn't flow naturally, so we thought, well, that's not a bad idea to just bring forward because we thought it was fitting, but can there be something else that addresses it, or is that okay? Is the overall production good? Are you okay with the seven bullet count? And are we missing anything, or have we overstated anything? So these are the questions that we generally have, but open for discussion. We'll take comments, and then we'll jump into the development regulations.

Thank you for that grounding of everything, CAC. I just want to be very clear. We're not deciding on anything here tonight. We're just trying to give you feedback and comments, and this will lead to further iterations.

If you're fine with it, we'll bring back the language for a final recommendation. If there are changes you want, we'll make those and we'll come back.

With that, I'll open it up for comments from commissioners. Commissioner Chazar.

CAC, well done. I read through this several times. I saw your bullet point. I'm okay with the seven bullet points. One thing that stood out to me under community ties, I noticed that military is under workforce, but it's not under the community ties. I know it says newcomers, but it's sort of military is a unique newcomer because... They come and they go, and I think that the community ties is to allow them to integrate into the community rapidly so that they don't feel like outsiders, and to also support whatever needs they have when they come to our community. So that'd be the only thing I saw, but it's a very well done vision statement. Outside of that, the only thing I kept on stumbling across was the opening vision as natural and humans. Yeah, that was the only thing I stumbled across. I even put it in AI, and even AI couldn't come up with something better than that. But well done, and I appreciate it.

We struggled with that opening statement as well, and that's why we thought we'll just bring it up here and see if people are having the same struggle. I mean, you can try and reword the full sentence somehow else.

I tried, but Jim and I kept on giving you the same thing. Good try. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Uh, commissioner guy.

Um, I, I echo that, that same sentiment. Um, I actually liked the seven bullet points. I like what's captured in there. Um, by nature, I would prefer five bullet points, but, uh, um, I don't want to lose anything out of that in my personal opinion. Um, I also, uh, took issue, we'll say, with that first sentence, mainly because the word community is used twice, once right after the other. I did come up with a potential. It's not my favorite, but But basically many communities going to a home to diverse populations, wildlife and rich ecosystems that sustain it. That kind of takes those to the communities in nature. It makes it a little bit longer, though. That's that's a concern because I'm more in favor of short.

So I can I can I have you repeat your vision one more time absolutely.

So I'm not going to try to say because I keep saying this word wrong. A memorial in one more. From the memorial Oak Harbor has been home to a diverse population wildlife and rich ecosystems that sustain it. And then we move on to as the city moves into the future.

that's great. We'll capture it from the video minutes if we can. Um, but if you can also email, I sure will. I sure will. I don't miss anything.

It's just a recommendation. I'm not saying that's okay. Yeah. Yeah. And then if I could, because I so much like the five bullet points over the seven, the conciseness of that, I looked at ways where we could potentially combine some of them. And I think there is a way to do the first and second one, and then the one, two, three, for five and six. I think there is a way to put those two together. Um, I have some ideas. They're not complete, but, um, I think there are ways that those could be combined without losing anything out of them because the ideas that those bring are really important, I think. Um, but then again, the seven bullet points is not a, not a deal breaker. Uh, just trying to focus on the idea of possibly bringing it down to five.

Thank you for your comments. Do I have any other comments? Commissioner Bracken.

Thank you. I really appreciated the work that was put into this CAC. Thank you. I too agree that the seven feels too long. And I do feel like five would be more concise. I also agree with Commissioner Guy that six is probably about as far as you could condense what has been presented because all of the seven ideas are really valuable. And, um, while he was speaking, I also had the thought that, um, seven is, is just this magical number for humans generally. Um, so if there was a way to incorporate that further into the city, um, that might be a great way about going about it. Um, but I, I that's beyond this meeting and beyond me. So that's, that's my very. ethereal suggestion. In that way, I think seven might actually work. And I really liked what Commissioner Guy said about the first sentence. I felt like that worked a little bit better. I do wanna say the word seeks, Oak Harbor seeks to be welcoming feels very passive. And I don't want to present too many battles, but I would suggest endeavors to put actual energy behind the effort. That's all I'm going to say on these. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Any other comments? Commissioner Kendall.

I agree with that opening statement. I reread it a couple times because I had a hard time kind of understanding and reconciling fully what it meant. But I do like the fact that it balances communities, you know, natural communities as well as human. I do like what Commissioner Guy said, your opening statement that you wrote, it kind of flows better. For me, I'm not opposed to the idea of seven bullet points. But I think if we have seven, I would recommend shortening the words that are in those bullet points. So it's not so much in each different section, if that makes sense. Making it more concise, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. And I like what Commissioner Bakken said about a more actionable verb. I like endeavor. That's good. To make it more clear that this is something that we're actively working towards being. And yeah, make it more of an active stance, so.

Thank you for your comments. I'll add my own here. I guess I'm going to start this with sort of a question. Every time I see seven or five or something like this here and the vision, this kicks off the whole document. Is this carried through throughout the rest of the document in some way? Are these seven pillars identified or outlined? Or is this purely contained within the vision statement? Or is there some intent to carry it through the document?

Good question. Our comprehensive plan is broken into elements. And we're updating each element. So there will be components of this that will flow into each element. But more than that, I don't think it will be structured in this way.

Thank you. I'm an engineer by trade, so I always think of users and use cases. When I'm thinking of a vision statement, it's a scene setter for the rest of the document. The question is, what do we want people reading this to walk away with? um and and i think that that ties into we wanted to set up the rest of the document so it's pretty hard to to cage this but and i'm not sure exactly where this would go but is there any way to to find those themes through the document or bind them into the document as we go along or do we have other themes in the document that we could kind of backboard into this so to speak to make it tie together that's just a matter of how the information is organized

But I think we have to go through our comp plan, do the policies and so on, and then information can be organized to fit into these. But it will be hard to create the information in our existing elements and try and label the structure. So it's more about information organization, I think, than The intent is to have these visions play a part in how you do the policy. So when we go through our policy discussion and we reach a crux at some point, you know, does the vision support this is the question that we want to ask. And that's how I think it kind of helps the discussion as opposed to being an implementing kind of a tool of organizing information in the comp plan.

I think that's a really, really strong point. Do I feel myself reaching back to this vision statement when discussing policies or something like that is a core question I think here. Does this give me guidance on those points? I guess the other thing I would like to echo, everybody wants it smaller and shorter and I'm totally about brevity. Anything you can do to either cut words or cut bullet points, I'm a big fan of. The other piece in here is specifically mentioning people. I really appreciate that most of the bullet points mentioned that a city is about the people living in it. Any chance we can to pump that in there, I'm a big fan of. My comments is anybody have any follow-ups. Commissioner Chazza.

Yeah, I would assume that as you go through the comprehensive plan, anything in the comprehensive plan has to support this vision. If it doesn't support the vision, then it doesn't go in the comprehensive plan, I assume.

It shouldn't. Through our discussion and through our policy discussion, that's kind of what we'll be trying to do. If there are policies that don't support or forward or, you know, further this vision, you want to either try to take it out or make, you know, consider it irrelevant or not supporting it. So that's one way to kind of look at policies that you want to leave behind and change to new policies. But, yeah, it's a forward-looking document. And even if you don't capture all of it, all of the changes in this time, you'll have chances to amend the document every year, which is, again, every amendment that comes forward, hopefully you're saying, are we furthering the vision with our actions?

Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Stuckey, please.

As an aside to that, if you look at these, many of them refer not directly but thematically to other plans that we've done. Safe movement, we have the accessibility plan. Housing services, we have the housing action plan. Visitors identity, we have the waterfront redevelopment plan. There's plans within plans and many of these hit plans we've currently worked on that get integrated into the comprehensive plan, just for a little bit of context.

that's a very good point. And the vision statement may have things that we don't have plans for, and we can plan to do those as we go as well.

Commissioner Backen.

So just to follow up on Commissioner, I'm sorry, Ward's, remembering all the last names, Commissioner Ward's statement, this is a little bit beyond the scope of this particular conversation, but I want to plant it for future conversation. Following the pillars that are outlined in the vision statement, would it be possible to have a checklist or cheat sheet in each of the elements saying, this element, we talk about these pillars of the vision and how it does match. And it doesn't need to say necessarily anything else, but like kind of like letting you know, we matched these to our vision. We were intentional about it.

Yeah, I think we can capture in the opening remarks in terms of when you go into the planning policies, what you're trying to achieve with the policy and how it connects to the vision. I always want to make that strong connection, so absolutely we can try and lead a reader to how the policies in the particular element are capturing the intent of the vision. Thank you.

Thank you for that. I'd just like to back up. I think that it's a really awesome idea. Use this as the tool, right? So if we start using this, then we can test it out. And it's not written until it's written. If we go through a couple actual policy discussions with this as a guide, it might help us say that we actually really like it.

Are there any final comments?

Oh, Commissioner Kendall.

If I'm understanding this correctly, hopefully, the way I'm viewing this vision statement is akin to a thesis for a paper, not necessarily organizationally, but these are the topics that we're going to hit in this comprehensive plan. This is what is going to be at the back of our minds as we're reviewing the policies and such, and making sure that they're in alignment with these different bullet points specifically. Am I understanding that correctly?

Yeah. All the policies in the plan, if you were to put it in the table and say, which of these statements does this policy support, we should be able to match.

write something that's kind of the idea yeah and i think for me reviewing this again um besides that intro statement which i think we're on track there um there's if we're looking at it that way for at least me having those seven bullet points as the pillars of what this is going to cover is it makes sense to me because how can you capture a whole comprehensive plan and just one statement like this? So yeah, that's it makes more sense to me looking at it that way.

Yeah, I mean, it's so it's not a rule that how the planning commission is suggesting what we're doing right now, because there are cities that have three line vision statement that is very broad and your policies fall under that umbrella without you trying to make too many connections. It's a general feel statement when you're going through this. The more elaborate your vision becomes, then the more the chances for interrelating things by the community. So there's no right way to do it. It's a choice. And so what I'm hearing from the commission, because we started off with the vision four paragraph vision, reducing it, reducing it. We're trying to determine how we use the vision. So these are all good conversations and this will be your Carver's choice in choosing this particular format for the plan. So this is not a, it's not a universally, you go to add a quarter. So if you go to Mount Moon and they'll have different systems.

Thank you. Any final comments? Okay. I believe, Kak, that you've gone through items A and B on the discussion, but we're now up to the development regulation discussion.

Yes. So development regulations, this is another part of the discussion we want to have today. And as I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, you know, these development regulations are required by gma when we do the periodic update to bring all our current regulations up to state law there have been recent state legislations that have affected permitted uses and parking and adus and housing and so on and so our codes need to catch up to these housing bills some of these requirements as i mentioned may already be covered our codes may cover them but we do have to look at it. Commerce gives us a checklist. The way we identify all these requirements is Department of Commerce gives us a checklist to go through for all of the checks on whether our code is meeting state bills. And so through that, we find out what are the requirements that we need to incorporate as part of our update. So there'll be things that we already cover, but there may be some amendments that we have to target. There's no draft code presented at this time based on our discussion today, and this is just an information introduction and just gathering concerns. We don't have any proposed language, but as we go forward, all the discussion we have here will definitely play into how we bring the code language forward. so we have several topics i have several slides what we could do is i can either go through all the development regulations and we can have the discussion at the end or we can go through each slide and talk about talk about each of the amendments it's the planning commission's preference in terms of how they want to do it I have, you know, we have slides on step housing, accessory dwelling units, and so on. So what would the commission's preference be? Do you want me to run through the presentation, or would you prefer to have a slide-by-slide discussion?

I'll open it for comments, but I will say I did briefly go through this, and it does jump around a bit. It's pretty dense. I personally would prefer going, you know, like one topic discussion, but I'll leave it up. Any discussion?

Okay. Sounds good. All right. Um, so, um, we'll jump right into it. Step housing. Um, this is the, um, um, my notes here. This is the, uh, uh, the step is normally, uh, referred to the housing emergency shelters, temporary housing, emergency housing, and permanent supportive housing. They kind of combine those and kind of commonly just refer to them as step housing. And so the state law kind of has some Directive so to speak or requirements of cities to consider these housing and where they are allowed so the House bill says that these type of shelters are supposed to be allowed wherever hotels are allowed so in our current code we don't have this as a separate use listed currently and And so I think the state code is requiring cities to have this as a separate use and list them under particular zoning categories. And especially where hotels are allowed, permanent supportive housing, where multi-family housing is permitted, you got to permit them outright. permanent supportive and transitional housing where residential units and hotels are allowed and definitions for these some of these uses and some of these housing types we don't have a definition in our zoning code currently so we have to probably add some definitions and also the house bill talks about how this type of housing cannot be different than other residential units so you want to kind of treat them at the same level. You can't say just because you're a permanent supportive housing, you have to go through a conditional use permit or something that is not required of other residential units. So you can't treat them very differently. So they're trying to have the cities look at them as residential structures and incorporate them into the residential neighborhoods. So I'll stop there and have any questions or thoughts on those.

Mr. Chazak.

Just a point of clarification. Permanent supportive and transitional housing. In my own mind, I have an idea of what that is, but can you tell me what that actually is?

Permanent supportive housing, I think, is where somebody is living and they get permanent support indefinitely. So there's no time limit on it.

So we're not talking about halfway houses and things like that, are we? Transitional housing. Are we talking about things like that that the state's going to require us to allow in residential areas?

No, I think those are different uses than housing for affordability and things like that. Got it.

Thank you.

Other comments? And I have one or at least question do we have an inventory of these or is this part of we haven't defined this we haven't been inventorying where this type of housing exists currently.

I am not sure if we keep a running inventory of this. I can check and see but I'm not sure we keep tabs on on this I'm not sure if the county keeps tabs we don't have a dedicated housing kind of tracking housing component. You know, we're relying a lot on the county's housing authority and their ability because we feel like housing is a regional issue and not just a city issue. So currently a lot of this is being supported by the county as opposed to the city. So I'm not sure if the city is tracking this right now.

Just for context, what I asked, you know, any time that I would want to consider regulations, I'd like to understand the impact that regulations could have. So any existing inventory to understand anything that we did write down or define or regulate would be nice to know what we'd be potentially recommending on.

And I'm not sure whether they should be tracked. So there's the other concern. If the state is asking for these to be as same as any residential, I am not sure what tracking the city needs to do. So there's that aspect of it as well. There may be programs or things that they are using the county or the state for, but why should the city be tracking them separately than any other residential? So there's some questions maybe related to that as well.

One follow-up. In the Memo that describes this in more detail later on in the packet, I believe, and I may be getting some of the different terms mixed up. I mentioned a lot about UGA, which obviously is outside the city. How does that fit in if most of this is UGA and obviously where the city, how does that resolve?

We take what applies to us. So the House bill is general in nature. So the county has to deal with the allowance of these units in the UGA.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions?

All right.

Council Member Stuckey.

Test your memory a little bit. How is this different from the House Bill in 21 that required, I remember being similar, it required homeless shelters and transitional housing in places where hotels were allowed. How is this different from that? That came out in 2021. Do you know that off the top of your head?

They may be two different House Bills and they may be saying the same thing.

Okay. I feel like it is.

Yeah.

So, because that was one of the things that came up, you know, We're going to be blunt. How could you allow spin cafe there? Well, that's what the state law says. It's okay. I didn't know if there was a difference. It didn't seem like it. So I appreciate that.

If it worked on one use, they may use it for others as well.

Yeah, they probably changed a sentence somewhere. Who knows?

All right. Thank you. Next one.

Thanks.

Okay. accessory dwelling units so again this the rcws or the state bills have been passed on what city can allow and what city can't restrict so they've so they're basically saying that the city through its code amendment should allow at least two adus on each And here's where the UGA one comes. I just threw that UGA in. Even though we cannot authorize anything in the UGA, that's what the RCW, so I just wanted to throw that in there. So wherever single family homes are allowed, we allow at least two ADUs. The ADUs can be detached or they can be attached. So any combination of that is allowed. CONVERSIONS OF GARAGES IS ALLOWED AS WELL, EVEN IF THE CURRENT SETBACKS DON'T MEET STANDARDS. SO THAT'S SOMETIMES WHAT CITIES USE AS A WAY TO SAY, I'M SORRY, YOU CAN'T, BECAUSE THERE'S A NONCONFORMING FEATURE HERE, YOU CAN'T HAVE THAT, BUT THE STATE IS TRYING TO PROVIDE FOR MORE OPPORTUNITY HERE, SO THEY'RE KIND OF TAKING THOSE RESTRICTIONS OUT. AND ALSO ADUS AND ITS LOCATION ON The alley lot line, we have a few alleys here, but I think in other cities these are important because you need the space. You want the space as much as possible. And what are jurisdictions not allowed to regulate is the owner occupancy. This was something that the city had in the past, but it has been currently amended to take that requirement out. A LOT OF CITIES STILL DO, AND THEY'LL BE REQUIRED TO REMOVE THAT REQUIREMENT. NOT REQUIRING PUBLIC STREET IMPROVEMENTS, TRYING TO CAP THE IMPACT FEES AT 50% OF THE PRINCIPAL UNIT, ADU SIZES UP TO 1,000 SQUARE FEET AND HEIGHT 24 FEET UNLESS THE PRINCIPAL STRUCTURE IS LIMITED. AGAIN, SETBACKS, LOT COVERAGE, FREE RETENTION, DESIGN REVIEW, and other standards cannot be more restrictive than the principal structure. So the state is trying to open the doors for more of these to happen. They have allowed for cities to have parking if they need, but they've capped it to one per unit for lots under $6,000 and two for larger lots. So you can require parking, but you cannot require excessive parking, so to speak. So they've capped that. So these are some of the highlights of the ADU. We'll open up for questions and comments.

Mr. Chasler.

i'm just confusion over the parking when i was reading through kim's memo it says in here we can't we can't if i read this right we can't restrict off-street parking for affordable housing no off-street parking is required for residential projects um but yeah this says we can we can cap it to one space parade to you is that I'm just confused about two different statements.

So one is for affordable housing. So ADU is separate than affordable housing. So I think you're reading the parking requirements for affordable housing separate and then ADU parking.

But if the ADU is designated affordable, then no one goes out the window.

I'm not sure how. I think ADUs are not classified generally as affordable. I think you have to meet some criteria in order to be affordable units. Not all ADUs are affordable units. So the requirements are different, I think.

Any other comments or discussion?

Council member Stuckey. Are we still not doing much in the way of ADUs? I know from like 2004 to 2018, there were like three built. And I remember we served with the housing action plan. We did make it a little easier for people to do ADUs, but is it still true that it's not something that's really gained much traction within the city limits?

Not yet. We're getting some slight, we're getting more inquiries. I can't, I don't know how many permits or anything that we have right now, but it's not overwhelmingly, you know, even though a lot is allowed through our code, there still has to be a market demand, and the market has to be right for it. ADUs are still expensive to build, so unless you have extra money, you're still going to the bank for a loan to build this ADU. And all of that depends on market rates and interest rates and so on and so forth. So our codes allow it, but the market may still not be right for it.

Yeah, I'll just say I did dig into this a little bit, and OCARB and surrounding areas and ADUs have a lot of promise, but where they have been implemented and gotten some traction, it's been with supplementary programs like pre-approved plans and developer workshops and a lot of additional work there. Just as a general question, how much in conflict are we with this at the moment? We do have regulations on ADUs. Do we have a lot of conflict with what we've got or is there not a lot of conflict?

With that, we haven't done any code amendments, and I haven't looked at it. Without doing any detailed analysis, I'd say that I don't think our code talks about the number of ADUs currently, so we may have to clarify how many ADUs will be allowed. I think there's no number right now. So there may be some clarification there. We removed the owner occupancy requirements. The size may be something that is still restrictive. We currently have 600 square feet, I think, for a detached ADU. And that's just because the language that we've used for the last 20 or so years needs to be clarified and cleaned up. So we'll have to clarify that. um the height is no problem we've got 35 feet we may want to include some clauses about tree retention just because we got interest of the gary oak trees we want to be allowed taking that into account allowing flexibility for either not requiring parking if if possible in those scenarios or moving the structures to a place where it doesn't have to impact the tree as much so i think WE SHOULD CONSIDER SOME OF THOSE CHANGES IN PARKING. I THINK WE ALREADY HAVE A REQUIREMENT FOR AND MAYBE ADEQUATE TO ADDRESS THE REQUIREMENTS HERE FOR THE STATE. SO MOSTLY IN COMPLIANCE, VERY LITTLE CHANGES HERE AND THERE TO CLARIFY THINGS BECAUSE OUR CODE IS REALLY VERY PERMISSIBLE. WE DON'T HAVE LIMITS ON ADU area if it's attached to the house. So if you're doing an ADU, attaching it to an existing structure, it can be bigger than the principal structure. Right now there's no restrictions on it. A detached structure, we have 600 square feet, which will be at least updated to 1,000 square feet with this code amendment.

Thank you. Do I have any other questions or comments? Let's move on.

Co-living. This is a new type of housing use that the state is asking the cities to consider. And again, I won't be able to tell you if we have these here and how many or if we have a demand for it. But co-living basically is where there's a structure with multiple sleeping units where people can lock their sleeping units, but they share a common kitchen facility. THEY'RE CALLING IT CO-LIVING AND I THINK THE STATE IS REQUIRING US TO INCLUDE THIS AS A USE. SO TODAY WE JUST HAVE RESIDENTIAL USE AND THEN WE LIST IT UNDER WHATEVER CATEGORY, WHATEVER ZONING. NOW WE HAVE TO START KIND OF BREAKING DOWN SOME OF THESE INTO VERY SPECIFIC TYPE OF USES AND WHERE THEY ARE ALLOWED IN ORDER TO MEET THE CODE, IN ORDER TO MEET THE STATE REQUIREMENTS OR SHOW THEM THAT WE'RE or meeting the requirements. So we may have to probably include a definition of this into our code and where it's allowed. So again, allowed wherever multifamily units of greater than six units are permitted. Again, we have to just probably look at the definition. Again, these can't be reviewed any differently than residential structures, other residential or multifamily structures. They should go through the same process, and they're allowing for this housing to participate in affordable housing incentives however they choose to do that. So where the local restrictions are narrowed, is that it cannot be more restrictive for this housing than other housing, as I talked about. NOT HAVE ROOM SIZE STANDARDS OR ANY OF THOSE KIND OF REQUIREMENTS FOR THE BEDROOM UNITS THAT ARE GOING TO BE IN THERE. AND ALSO HAS SOME INFORMATION ON HOW TO CALCULATE DENSITY BASED ON THESE UNITS AND SO THE STATE IS GIVING SOME GUIDANCE IN TERMS OF HOW DO YOU MEET THE DENSITY REQUIREMENTS OF R2 OR R3 WITH THE COAL LIVING. YOU HAVE TO COUNT THE UNITS SO YOU CAN HAVE MORE NUMBER OF BEDROOMS ACTUALLY BECAUSE IT'S ONLY .4 per bedroom towards the density. So if you have 22 units per in one unit or one structure, you count only a quarter of it towards the density. So you can actually have more people living in it. And then again, parking requirements has also been reduced for these. So that's the state requirements for co-living. So any questions on that?

Any questions? Commissioner Backen.

Do we expect co-living to be something that is coming to Oak Harbor? Having recently looked for apartments myself, I understand that there are limited options and I'm just curious if this is something that you know of is already here or is this something that you think is going to be introduced?

I think it's gaining popularity and it's probably, if I'm looking at it from kind of a public, like if you're an investor, it's an easy one to get into, right? And people may know about the state law and then look for structures in different cities that can fit this and maybe retrofit it. I've had one question directly to me about this in the last month or so. but I don't think we've had any applications or any permits. But I think there's general interest and inquiry into this form of investment, because I think it is a sort of investment tool. It is a sort of a developer's tool, because it is in the apartment and the rental business. So we have some interest, but I can't say that we have them already or or I haven't seen any, I'm not tracking them, so. Okay, thank you.

Any other questions? I just have one clarification of the definition. Is co-living all one contained building or does that include like multiple small buildings with a common kitchen area building or something of that nature?

I am not sure. Good question. We can look into the definition of what co-living is. And I'm not sure if the definition is in your pack. Oh, well, actually it is. Co-living housing means a residential development with sleeping units that are independently rented and lockable and providing living and sleeping space. And residents share kitchen facilities and other sleeping units in the building. So I think it's one building. It cannot be...

Any other questions? All right, let's move on.

We'll move on to the next one. Parking. So parking, some of the requirements coming out of there is, like, where can you require parking, and is the city not allowed to require parking? So no off-street parking for affordable housing. So if you qualify for affordable housing, the city... Does not have the ability to have any required parking how the project can provide parking, you know based on market But it's just that the city does not require you to have any minimum parking So this doesn't mean that housing won't have parking It's just that the developers will decide what parking is most feasible based on what they think the product is going to do But from the city standpoint, we won't require them to have any parking. So that's what that basically says. Passive house residential projects, this is a type of housing that is very environmentally intense. They use different technologies, I think. It's a new type of housing style, I think, where they have extra insulation and things to climate control the housing and therefore and the state is supporting this type of housing and they're saying don't require parking guessing that the people who prefer this type of housing have also lifestyles that may be friendly to bicycles and other modes of transportation that parking may not be the prime so the state is considering these and and saying okay you know cities You don't need to require parking. Now, again, if the developer wants to provide parking, they'll provide parking. It's just the city's requirement. Modular construction, mass timber, these are projects that the city doesn't have to require parking. And when parking is required, What can be done? So when parking is required, the city cannot require it to be in garages or carports. That's what it says. You can't say that every house has to have a garage or every house has to have a carport. That's not something that the city can say. So how can the residents provide parking? Well, they can provide tandem parking. They can provide grass blocks. And in some cases, they're also saying, like, if there's pre-existing gravel parking spaces, you should accept that. So the state is trying to make it. So these are all things that usually are hurdles for a particular development because our current code does not recognize gravel as a surface, approved surface for parking. It creates all kinds of stormwater issues or maintenance issues and things like that. And now the state is requiring that the city consider some of these existing parking lots. So we'll have to take a look at that. And then again, tree retention. And this may be useful for the city, especially related to Gary Oaks. is the ability to override the parking requirements if needed. Again, here we're saying city's going to remove the requirement, but that doesn't mean that the developer won't provide parking. They just have to provide for whatever the market bears. The state has also asked for the reduction in parking dimensions, and we'll have to probably change that because I think our parking dimension is a little bigger than that. So we'll have to change this to meet the state law. And so that will reduce most parking spaces, the dimensions of them in developments from here on out. So that's the parking requirements.

Any questions or comments? Mr. Chazar.

Can an HOA be more restrictive than in the city? So can an HOA prohibit parking on the grass or gravel? So an HOA can, so someone can't use this against their HOA.

Yeah, if the city doesn't have, you know, if the city accepts grass, papers, but a HOA doesn't, that's, yeah, that's the HOA's question.

Council Member Stuckey.

So we don't have to worry about at this point, the state mandated parking modernization act, because that city is under 30,000, correct? So we're not, we're not going by that with our comp plan.

I don't think so. We, the thresholds, some of the thresholds we haven't crossed. So there are a whole lot of requirements for about 25,000, about 30,000. And we have not, we're not considering those.

And then when it says affordable housing, that does that also mean low income housing? Because they're kind of separate.

Good question. I'm not sure if low-income housing would fall under affordable housing or if they're two different categories. I mean, it's a matter of... The lens that you're looking through for a particular analysis, I don't think they're the same in instances. So if you're analyzing for income levels, whether we're providing for all income levels, then you look at the low income and the middle income. But affordable is just based on the median, average median income. So I think they're just apples and oranges. I wouldn't put them in the same basket.

OK. Thank you.

Any further questions or comments? I can just summarize that the theme here is developers can still do whatever they want. If they think development needs five parking spaces for one house, they can build that. It's just the city is going to have a lot more restrictions on what minimums we can place. A lot of our minimums are going to zero and some of the non-zero ones are going to much lower values. OK. Thank you.

Right. Childcare and family daycare, again, is state law. I think this is something that probably you hear in every city, the concern that we don't have enough daycare or childcare, whether childcare is actually affordable or not. So I think the state is hearing that and has provided some broad code for cities to allow these uses to be more permitted in the city Because a lot of cities do have additional requirements, whether it's a conditional use requirement or some outdoor space requirements, fencing requirements, screening requirements. All of these are partly in place in a lot of cities, and these may be impacting these uses from locating. So the state is, I think... in the mode of trying to allow these in more places because of the need. So again, allowing these uses, childcare uses, to be permitted outright, which means not a conditional use, not a special use, or not any particular process, outright permitted in all zones except industrial, light industrial, and open spaces. CONVERSION OF EXISTING BUILDINGS WHERE CHILD CARE MUST BE ALLOWED AND FAMILY DAY CARE HOMES CANNOT BE PROHIBITED IN RESIDENTIAL OR COMMERCIAL ZONES. SO WHAT THE CITY CAN REGULATE IS BUILDING CODE, OF COURSE. YOU KNOW, THIS IS PUBLIC SAFETY AND WELFARE TYPE CAUSES THE CITY CAN REGULATE. CAN REGULATE DROP OFF AND pickup and circulation and parking if needed. And of course we need to kind of differentiate clearly between what a child care center and a family daycare. And a child daycare or child care centers are broader and they're more commercial. So they have They are usually the ones that are preschools and are located in commercial, sometimes in commercial buildings, and they have classes and certified people to do most of the work on site. The family daycare is the resident-based daycare. So a mom having living, and there's some requirements in family daycare that whoever is giving care should live on that property. So They've separated child care and family care, but there are some separate requirements, and we may have to add some of these definitions in our code and then list them where they're permitted and where they're not. So that's the state law requirements for child care and family day care. Questions, concerns?

I just had one. I believe that we recently had a childcare, a daycare center open up and they had to get a, was it a deviance or not deviance? What's the term? A variance. Variance. There we go. Deviance is the wrong word here. Variance. Variance for playground access. So is that the type of thing that would go away here? Like we wouldn't be able to say you must have like a playground to be called one of these or is that not it?

Some of those may still apply under what the city can regulate under public health and welfare. So open space will be required. I don't remember what the exact detail of the variance was that came forward, but if there is something that doesn't meet the public safety, if it's across the street, if it's not adjacent, whatever that reason is, They still have to go through the variance because any other use may also have to do the same thing. So even if a commercial use had to have a parking separated or something, they have to go through a variance as well. So you're not requiring that use to go through some extraordinary steps. As long as it's applied universally to most cases, you can apply it here as well.

Yeah, so I think the, and again, I may be getting the particulars of this wrong, but I think it was something along the lines of they had to have a play structure or something along. So you're saying that any other commercial business, those are fine to still apply to them, but nothing specific to like a daycare limiting use. You know, we're saying, hey, must have this daycare specific piece to it. Like play area, I think.

Yeah, the play area requirement is a state requirement. So it's not a city requirement. So that's a state requirement. Now, how this use was accessing this play area may have been the reason the variance was . The placement of that outdoor play area may have not been in a suitable place. There may have been some dimensional restriction or something of that sort that may need the variance, but not the actual allowable use of that open space.

Got it. Um, yeah, I was just trying to mentally not, not to dig into that one specific issue. I was just trying to mentally cage this because it seems like they're basically saying anywhere there's houses, you can do this, but of course not all houses would support all uses is what you're saying.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. All right. Outdoor encampments hosted by religious organizations. We do have some code related to this already in our existing municipal code, and so we'll have to consider some changes to it. So what the city must allow. So here, again, the state laws requiring cities to consider allowance of these uses in a broader sense, and then also talking about would it are the restrictions that the city can have on these. So basically, the state is requiring that when religious organizations host a homeless population, they can DO IT FOR SIX MONTHS OR LONGER OR AT LEAST HAVE A MINIMUM OF SIX MONTHS IF THEY WANTED TO. SO CURRENTLY OUR CODE RESTRICTS THE USE OF THESE ENCAMPANTS FOR A CERTAIN PERIOD OF TIME. YOU GET 90 DAYS OR 180 DAY PERMIT. And then now there's requirements on whether you can have it on the same site, whether there should be a gap, how much distance. So now the state is coming in with requirements saying that you cannot limit them to less than six months. You can require to have a four-month gap, if you want, between the six-month uses. But six months is basically what they're saying is the minimum time that you should allow these to continue. Again, there's no caps on overall encampments. So the city can say we should have only two encampments at any given time or three at a time. So there's, they're limiting the caps on that. or taking away the caps. They are providing for some options for creating some distances between these. If we want, the city can consider that as part of the regulations.

And, of course, we have all kinds of

INSURANCE REQUIREMENTS RIGHT NOW AND I THINK THE STATE IS SAYING THAT THE CITY DOESN'T HAVE TO REQUIRE THOSE AS WELL. SO WE'LL HAVE TO PROBABLY AMEND SOME OF OUR CODES TO LOOK AT THAT. SO QUESTIONS ON THIS?

Does the state have a definition or a requirement for registering a religious organization? Or can I just say the House of Chazar and come and live on my property for six months with tents and everything else right in the middle of my neighborhood?

Good question. Same question I had. Who's the religious organization? And if I claim to be in a religious organization, can I have this? And we're checking into some of that. I don't have information for you on that, but I think there are some... There is a definition for religious institutions, and I think there's some, they are registered with the federal government. There's some requirements in order to be a religious organization. They have some certification or qualification for tax purposes, et cetera. And so there is a definition, and we'll probably be thinking about including that definition into our code so that that is much clearer.

Any other commissioner?

So I, I just want to comment that it sounds like there's a lot of definitions that we still need to be putting into the city code in order to just identify. And some of that definitely came forward as technology changed or as people moved or COVID COVID is always going to be an excuse for several generations. But I'm, I can't use a word less than flabbergasted that we don't have a definition for what a religious organization is.

I think we do. And I think that's where I think maybe I did read that they have to be registered. I think we do have it. I don't know if we need to clarify it, but I think we do have it either in our ordinance or it's probably we refer to the state definition.

I was afraid that the code was going to be leaning on the I know it when I see it and common sense conceptualizations, which... That would gall me further, so thank you.

Absolutely. We are looking at ways to always make our code clearer, and we do run into unintended language from years ago when you had that, I know a religious organization when I see one, and therefore I don't need to define it. But yes, we're looking for ways, and I think that's what the state is going through, because We had a tendency in 2016 to generally go more general. We went from one-to-one land use to more generalized land use. We wanted to be more permissive in our uses, so we generalized all our uses and so on so that we can have broader discretion on uses and interpretations. Now, as we go further and further, we've been asked to, again, get more particular about these uses. So it's kind of a going back and forth a little bit in trying. But right now, it seems like we need more definitions and more clarity. So that's the direction it seems to be heading.

Just to clarify, what I don't want us to see is get so general that we open up all kinds of loopholes. And then we end up trying to close loopholes against public opinion or partial public opinion and things like that. So that's what I'm trying to make sure that we have a working document that encourages development, encourages the expansion of services and everything else. But at the same time, not opening a door for unwanted services or whatever.

I understand the concern.

Any other questions or comments? I just have two. I mean, there's a very clear call out to religious here. Do you have the back story on why it doesn't say non-profits versus religious? Is there a breakdown here? Are we expecting this to expand all non-profits in the future? I mean, no.

Good question. I do not know the answer to that. I think the religious organizations have some different shield of protection that allows for some of these to happen. So I am not sure. Good question. But I don't have an answer for that. Okay.

And the second thing is the hosted word there is a pretty key thing. Is that just something from the slide or is that something from the regulations that are coming up. And the reason I bring that up is, again, like a religious organization giving the stamp of approval to something versus does this mean they actually have to own the land versus that kind of stuff?

I think there are some details in about whether they own the land or not. So I think we'll be looking into all of that.

Thank you. Any, Council Member Stuckey?

Real quick, because I was just looking at the RCW, they use the word hosted as well within the RCW, because you asked if it was a slide or not.

Thank you. Oh, go ahead.

oh uh commissioner guy did you oh okay you were the first so why don't you go commissioner okay um so i'm also kind of hung up on the hosted uh a religious organization organization may host the homeless on property owned or controlled by the religious organization organization whether within building located on the property or elsewhere on the property outside of the buildings So am I to read that to say, and maybe that's not for you, but an interpretation by everybody in the room, to say that if a religious organization owns a home in a neighborhood that basically people can sleep on the lawn? And then are we not opening up? If a religious organization just purchases outright an empty lot and creating encampments that a lot of the population is not fond of.

Yeah. So open question on that one. Good questions.

I don't know if there's legality behind that.

So we have in our zoning ordinance, um, religious organizations listed as a, as a use. And so they're, they're permitted in some, in certain zoning, uh, districts. So

If I'm reading that correctly, that would actually override that zoning ordinance, though, because the organization can basically do whatever they want on their own land.

Well, yeah. I mean, potential, I mean, yes. We don't know all the circumstances under which a religious organization may come forward to suggest, you know, solutions for this. And so we'll have to do it on a case-by-case basis. And that's why we still have some ability and some requirements in there to look at, you know, so that we make sure that they are happening at the right place right you know we still we still have some time manner and place kind of things that we can we can regulate so we'll be looking at that good question though thanks thank you and commissioner no commissioner guy brought up the exact same point i was gonna bring up all right thank you any other uh comments all right All right, moving on. All right, so some other items. These are not high impact, but yet things to consider. The state law also has passed some legislation to allow for existing structures to be retrofitted for insulation. And in that process, if the structure seems to infringe on the setbacks, they're saying that that's okay. I think that this may have been an issue for retrofitting homes in cities. I can't say we have a lot of these, but this must be an issue that the state is recognizing is preventing people from upgrading their homes or is one of the tools that the cities may use to say sorry you're in the setbacks and any infringement I mean, infringing into the setbacks from a planning standpoint is a big variance, and it's a judicial process to go through. And just for insulation, it's really hard to justify the criteria that is required for it. So I think the state is giving some lenience and up to eight inches. And so we'll probably look into adding something that allows for that. Again, solar panels allowing for that. to exceed height limits if needed. And maybe in some communities, when they do put these in, they exceed the height and cities may not have a way to get around it. Again, it's a variance if you want to exceed the height and variance criteria doesn't allow for to easily match for solar panels. The criteria are not suitable for that. So the state, again, is allowing for some of these to happen. And we have sections in our code that already allows for some of this. For example, structures above existing multifamily, whether it's HVAC systems or stairwell room where you go to the top, those structures can exceed the height and we have codes already in place for that so this should be able to fit into one of our codes so it shouldn't be a problem to accommodate and then there's some administrative review type amendments in terms of subdivision approval factors in terms of looking at the impact fee ordinance and exemptions and and reporting of these uh to uh back to the state so These are some other minor amendments that we will have to consider. Questions, concerns?

Any questions? First one I do not have questions on.

I think that ends my presentation on the packet that's in front of you. So if you have other general questions, I can address them.

Any general questions?

Comments personally and also comments addressed to me. At some point in time through this comprehensive plan, we get a forelooking about the services that are provided for this growth. For example, I know that the wastewater treatment plant was sized to expand based on the growth. But, for example, we received an email yesterday or this morning, whatever it was, that reduced our water by 10% because the Skagit River is down. I guess people are going to ask or are starting to ask, how are we supplying water to all these folks within the growth of the city as far as, like, no services are concerned? And then what are the future plans? Are we going to have water towers throughout the entire Oak Harbor city limits in case – We go through a water restriction from the Skagit Valley or whatever. Things like that. Just are we going to address at some point in time the expansion of the services? I know it's in your vision. Okay. But just want to make sure that to put people's mind at ease, that we are thinking forward about water because we hear all about wells and everything else outside that that the island wells are starting to dry up because of the expansion outside of the city. Now, what are we doing from a city standpoint to look forward towards water for example i know we've done it with sewer but from that standpoint absolutely great question um so what will address in this comp plan periodic update

will be very 30,000 foot level. So our EIS, when we do the environmental impact statement, it'll address the population, it'll identify that we need to provide these services, and so on. But we're really fortunate here in Oak Harbor that right as we're doing the comp plan, the Public Works Department is also updating all their utilities, utility plans. So our transportation plan, water system plan, sewer system plan, and solid waste plan all are being updated. And we have, I think, two, maybe three consultants. And it's almost a million dollar contract that we're updating all of these plans. So the comprehensive plan and the EIS will identify the amount of growth, where it's going in terms of our land uses and so on. And it will identify the challenges of bringing services and the need for planning to address all of the growth that we're doing. On the back end, after we adopt the comp plan, will come our transportation plan, our water system plan, sewer plan, and so on. And they'll have all of this information now that we've adopted in the comprehensive plan, and we'll be planning for that. And that's when we'll get more of the details of how the system is going to meet the growth demand.

Commissioner Buchanan, do you have anything? No. Okay. I did have a general comment. Are there any other comments? Sorry. I had a general comment. How is this being coordinated through different departments in the city? Like for instance, I saw the roof stuff and then the first thing that popped in my mind is the fire chief may want to have some discussion about that. Are these regulations going out and then coming back in with?

Yeah. All our existing policies have been reviewed by all the departments so when we had the meetings on our existing policies and the planning commission looked at all the elements that we have in our comp plan that has been reviewed by all our departments so the transportation element was reviewed by our public works waters our utility elements was reviewed by them the parks element was reviewed by the parks department so our existing policies had a review So now when our EIS document, draft EIS document comes, they'll have a chance to provide input again. So when we get those documents, we'll route them to other departments and say, what do you think? We'll gather those comments and those will get incorporated before they come to you.

Thank you. It would be really helpful to see, you know, like the subject matter experts in each one of these, if they had specific comments, when these come up to us, what those were, even if they're already incorporated in, just to see what they were thinking about, just as a, if the, when these do come in front of us, if those types of comments were made.

We'll try and, it depends on how the format and how the discussion, some of the discussion we have are in meetings. And some of the discussion are in written comments. So they differ. So we'll try and share with you the best we can.

Thank you. Any other general comments? Okay. Then I believe that concludes the discussion, action, presentation, report, audience. Thank you very much for all that detail, CAC. And now we'll move on to general member comments. Does anybody have a general comment that they'd like to add? Commissioner Bakken, sorry.

So first, I think it's really important to point out that staff and the mayor and the city council were really trying to get the planning commission filled. And I want to recognize that they did it. The planning commission is filled, even though we have two members absent tonight. I really want to congratulate and send my appreciation to staff and to the council and the mayor for succeeding in getting the planning commission filled. it makes me feel like we're actually doing something here. So thank you so much and for being so on top of that.

Any other? Then I would like to second that. It was very great to walk in here and see these seats filled and see people deciding to dedicate their time and effort to this. And I'm ecstatic to hear the veteran opinions and new insights coming into this forum. So thank you very much. I mean, I didn't mean it that, I didn't call you old. I didn't call you old. It's a veteran, you know. So yeah, I think that's great. I would just like to add a general comment too. I noticed that the packet format changed and I was really appreciative to see that. If anybody online is looking and you go to the last page, there's a nice little Quick links and updates on the packet. And I'm really appreciative to get some more information here that can help understand the current state of city planning and this group. So thank you to staff for adding that in there. Are there any other member comments to throw out? Right. Then we're going on to Section 7, Determination of Future Agenda Items. I'm not sure I've ever seen this on here. And I know that there's been some work towards pushing for this. And, you know, but... Oh, it was.

Oh, yes.

Sorry, go ahead, Jack.

No, I think that's just a placeholder for future discussion items. We don't have any items listed underneath there, so I think probably Stacy will have more to talk about it at the next meeting.

Then we will leave this as a point on the agenda. With that then, our next meeting is scheduled for August 11th, 2026. I have no further items on the agenda. Do I hear a motion to conclude this meeting? Motion from Commissioner Chazard.

Second.

Second from Commissioner Guy. All in favor, raise your hand. Aye. Aye. The motion passes.