Planning and Community Development Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning. Welcome to the Sonoma County Council's Planning and Community Development Committee meeting. It is Tuesday, September 1st at 11 a.m. We'll call the meeting to order. Before we do roll call, I'll read our public comment script. We'll be taking public comment beginning with in person and then remotely. On Zoom, you can click the hand icon to raise your hand. If calling by phone, press star nine to raise your hand. Then when called upon, you can press star six to unmute. Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak. And please begin your comment by stating your name and your city of residence. Next is roll call.

Committee Chair Nehring.

Here.

Committee Vice Chair Peterson.

Here.

Committee member Lowe.

Present.

Committee member Dunn. Here. Committee member Meade. Chair, we have four members present.

All right, thank you. So next we'll do public comments. Is there any in-person public comment this morning? All right, come on up to the podium.

Okay, a long morning here. I'm back. My name is Patrick Gann. I'm a Sonoma County resident, Clearview unincorporated area. And I want to bring all these comments together here. Chair and council members, you've already heard from me today about the financial consequences of keeping this business closed. You've heard about the overwhelming community support for allowing this business to open and the lack of documented community opposition. So I want to address one question. How did this 10,000 foot restriction become county code in the first place? Before recreational cannabis, excuse me, recreational legalization, there were multiple medical cannabis access points in Clearview. In 2016, Washington changed its medical cannabis system and those access points closed unless they transitioned into the state regulated system. After that, the number of cannabis businesses dropped until there was ultimately one licensed recreational retailer in Clearview. For years, there was no proliferation of stores, no documented community crisis, and no demonstrated public safety problem requiring 10,000 feet. And importantly, when the county processes changed in 2023, it relied upon state findings that did not establish licensed cannabis retailers as a threat to public safety. Licensed cannabis retailers are secured, 21 and over facilities, and identification requirements, cameras, security, and product testing are extensive regulatory oversight. Legal retailers move cannabis sales away from the illicit market into regulated, accountable, tax-paid businesses. So the premise for maintaining a TRO against my business on public safety grounds simply does not hold up. So why 10,000 feet? Through public records, I found communications between county staff and lobbyists representing the existing operator. County staff asked, does this give your client the flexibility they need? And the correspondents described the 10,000 feet as a nice round number that likely would not raise questions on how it was determined. Land use code should be based on legitimate public policy, not whether a particular distance gives a private client the flexibility that they need. The ordinance was introduced on February 2nd, 2023 and adopted on March 8th. In roughly five weeks, the separation requirement went from 2,500 feet to 10,000 feet. Where was the study? Where was the public safety need? Where was the community asking for 10,000 feet? And today the county already has the correction in front of it. The County Executive's amendment returns the rural separation requirement to 2,500 feet. It has gone through a SEPA review, gone before the Planning Commission, and received the Planning Commission's recommendation. So look at the evidence, read the emails, look at the timeline, Look at who requested the 10,000 feet and who benefited from it and how that number was selected. The justification for the 10,000 feet rule and number was never reached. The justification for continuing to keep my business closed on public safety grounds isn't there either. The correction is already in front of you. Please finish the process and fix it. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comment. Is there anybody else in person who would like to provide public comment this morning? Do we have any hands raised online?

No hands raised.

Okay, we'll move on then to our action items, beginning of motion 26-305. Sorry, I wasn't sure.

Hello, good morning, Committee Chair Nehring, Vice Chair Peterson, and county council members. I'm Hillary McGowan, council staff for the record. First, we'll be hearing ECAF 2026-1984, motion 26-305. The Department of Ecology and Snohomish County signed an agreed order in 2021 to implement scoping and cleanup work at the contaminated Tex aerospace site in Everett. In 2022, a consultant services agreement was made with Landau to provide technical assistance to the airport for remedial investigation planning and implementation, subject to the agreed order with Ecology. The negotiated scope and fee for this work was not to exceed $1,694,000, thousand and one hundred dollars, with the contract ending at the conclusion of 2026. In 2023, Ecology deemed the site too complex and required an amended agreed order that requires the county to undertake all actions for remedial work. Motion 26-305 amends the contract in three main ways. It extends the existing agreed order for an additional two-year term, as currently allowed. This work will begin January 2027 and concludes at the end of 2028. The contract provides an additional $2,250,000 in compensation for 2027-28 and to add an option to extend or renew the contract for one additional three-year term that could be extended until the end of 2031. The total new proposed expenditure to Lando Associates, Inc. is not to exceed $2,250,000. The Airport Enterprise Fund has sufficient funds for this project. The requested action is to move 26-3 305 motion 20 success 305 to GLS on September 9th to set a time and date for a public hearing This concludes my staff report and I'm available for questions.

Great. Thank you.

Appreciate that any questions or comments from council members So the whereas clause says that it can be extended For an additional one additional two-year term at the discretion of the county Does that mean it comes back to County Council for approval?

That's a great question. I'm curious if anybody from the airport is online that could speak to that.

Good morning. This is Dawson Frank, Deputy Director for the airport. Can you hear me? Yes. That is correct, Councilmember Dunn. The process for any further extension will be coming back to Council if we do exercise that final two-year extension.

Thank you.

Thanks, Dawson. Appreciate it.

Other questions, comments? All right. Any objection to consent? If not, then we'll move motion 26-305 to the consent agenda on September 9th's GLS. We'll move on to motion 26-306.

Motion 26-306 amends an on-call legal consultant contract with Kaplan-Kirsch LLP for legal services regarding federal aviation law and regulation for the airport. In 2021, Snohomish County entered into a contract with Kaplan-Kirsch LLP until the end of 2024. The contract was originally for $25,000. The contract was further amended in 2021 and twice in 2025 to extend funding for continuing aviation legal consulting via Amendments 1 through 3. Proposed Amendment 4 provides additional compensation of $150,000. These four amendments, along with the original contract, total $600,000 in compensation to Kaplan-Kirsch LLP. The amended contract also allows for extensions or renewals for two additional three-year terms. The existing contract extension is through December 31st, 2027. The Airport Enterprise Fund has sufficient funds in the 26-27 budget to accommodate the compensation costs requested. The requested action is to move motion 26-306 to GLS on September 9th to set a time and date for a public hearing. This concludes my staff report, and I'm available for questions.

Great. Thank you. Any questions or comments on this item? Any objection to consent? Okay, if not, we'll move this to GLS on September 9th on the consent agenda. We'll move on to motion 26-323.

So, I'm sorry, staff said that it's to move to a public hearing.

Oh, sorry, it should say GLS. My apologies. Yes, to move to GLS on September 9th.

Okay, and next up we have motion 26-323.

Motion 26-323, Snohomish County currently contracts with John Eager Roofing LLC to repair a roof on the display hall at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds. Motion 26-306 amends this contract to reflect updated costs associated with newly identified roof repair needs. The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources signed a contract with John Eager Roofing in May 2026 to not exceed the amount of $38,365.30 to repair the display hall roof. Initial work discovered that additional work was needed to repair elements of the roof that were not included in the initial bid. The amended contract would increase costs by $11,721.22, totaling $50,086.52. The roof repair is to be completed 60 days after the notice to proceed is granted. There is sufficient budget authority that exists in the approved 25-26 budget for DC&R. The requested action is to move motion 26-323 to GLS on September 9th to set a time and date for a public hearing. This concludes my staff report, and I'm available for questions. Oh, sorry, just to GLS on September 9th.

Perfect, thank you. All right, questions or comments? Okay, any objection to consent? If not, we'll move motion 26-323 to GLS on September 9th for consideration on the consent agenda. Next, we have motion 26-337.

Good morning, Council. For the record, Nicole Gourley, Council Staff. Motion 26-337 would approve a contract with Cascadia Consulting Group to provide consulting services pertaining to the 2024 through 2029 rainscaping campaign with the underlying goal of public education to reduce stormwater runoff. The contract duration is from execution through January 31st, 2029, and has a do not exceed amount of $415,000. This contract is funded through Surface Water Management's Fund 415. Funding was included in the adopted budget and is included in the upcoming 27-28 budget for this contract. Lastly, the motion would authorize the executive to execute the contract and any future amendments. Today's request is to move to GLS for consideration.

Great. Thank you, Nicole. Any questions or comments? Any objection to consent? Okay, and we'll move this item to GLS on the 9th for consideration under the consent agenda. Next, we have motion 26-346.

Motion 26-346 would approve a contract with Gold Buckle Rodeo Company to provide professional rodeo entertainment at the Evergreen State Fair in 2026 and continuing through 2030. The rodeo will be a three-day event taking place over Labor Day weekend each year. The staff report provides a summary of the scope of services under the contract by sections. The contract duration is from execution through September 30, 2030, with an option to extend one additional five-year term, and it has a do-not-exceed amount of $371,447. The annual cost of that is a range from $69,000 to $79,000 annually over the lifespan of the contract, and it is funded through Fund 197. Today's request is to move this motion to GLS tomorrow for consideration.

Okay. Thank you. Questions or comments on this item?

Is this the contract that was already signed It it's been taken care of we got a clean copy because yeah, so it's like it wasn't okay. Thank you.

Yes other questions This is on consideration for tomorrow any objection to consent tomorrow Okay, and we'll move this to GLS on September 2nd for consideration under the consent agenda. Next is motion 26-3 for seven. I

Motion 26-347 would approve the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to spend $75,000 on a contract with Shannon and Wilson Inc. to improve and update the county's critical areas monitoring and adaptive management program through mapping and data analysis. This contract is sufficiently funded by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife grant of $249,215 for this program. The contract is for six months and may be extended or renewed for up to one additional one-year term. The requested action is to move motion 26-347 to GLS on September 9th for consideration. This concludes my staff report and I'm available for questions.

Great. Thanks, Hillary. Any questions or comments from council? Any objection to consent? If not, we'll move motion 26-347 to GLS on the 9th for consideration on the consent agenda. Next is motion 26-316.

The Alderwood Water and Wastewater District provides sanitary sewer service to a large portion of southwestern Snohomish County. State regulations require that sewer districts adopt a comprehensive sewer plan and for it to be consistent with the Growth Management Act comprehensive plan. In 2024, as part of the comprehensive plan update, an urban growth area expansion was approved in the southwest UGA in the Maltney Road area. The expanded UGA is currently unsewered. Motion 26-316 amends the Alderwood Water and Wastewater District General Sewer Plan to address the expansion of the sewer system into the newly added portion of the southwestern UGA. The Department of Ecology and the Sonomish County Engineer approve the General Sewer Plan amendment, and Planning and Development Services finds the updated sewer plan to be consistent with the comprehensive plan. The requested action is to move motion 26-316 to GLS on September 9th for consideration. This concludes my staff report, and I'm available for questions.

Okay, thank you. Appreciate that. Questions or comments? Objection to consent? Okay, we'll move motion 26-316 to GLS on the 9th for consideration on the consent agenda. Next, our final item is the summer 2026 open space taxation applications. I'll turn to you, Hillary, if you want to introduce our guest here.

Thank you. Yeah, so Snohomish County processes open space tax applications to be considered by Snohomish County Council. The Open Space Taxation Act was enacted in 1970 to support the maintenance, preservation, conservation, and overall existence of open space lands for agriculture, forestry, natural resources, and scenic beauty. Planning and Development Services develops a staff report of these individual applications for County Council consideration. County Council is to consider if an application should be approved, amended, or denied through assessing the benefits of preserving the current use of a property, the resulting revenue loss or tax shifts, and whether the application preserves farmland or open space land. County Council last held a hearing on open space applications in June 2025. Council Clerk staff will assign this report a motion number in advance of GLS. Shannon Bird is here from PDS to present on their report of 48 open space tax applications. Thank you.

Thanks, Hillary. For the record, Shannon Bird, planner with Long Range Planning and PDS. I'll be walking you through the 2026 open space applications. So the purpose of the open space program is to preserve open space lands for food production and natural resources. Participating properties are valued at their current use instead of the highest and best use. There are six different types of open space applications. Today we're going to be focusing in on three, and those ones are, excuse me, Open Space General, Open Space General Agricultural Conservation, and Open Space General Timberland. So a quick review of the administrative process that the open space applications go through. So the assessor intakes the applications, and then they send it to the executive. And the executive transmits it to council. Council, by way of motion, refers it to PDS for evaluation. The evaluation provides recommendations back to council. Council adopts through final action at a public hearing. So PDS and the assessor's office work collaboratively to evaluate whether applicants meet criteria in RCW 8034 as well as the Homage County Code 4-28-040. And that section of code lists 20 different criteria. that open space applications must meet at least one. Most of the acres deemed ineligible to open space in this batch of applications was due to the home site provision that if a residence was located on the property, one acre must be removed from the total acres on the property eligible. So county council at a public hearing will approve or deny these three types of open space applications based on the criteria listed here, also in RCW 84-34037. And the assessor approves the three other types of applications. So a quick summary of this batch of open space applications. We had 48 total properties applied for. The request include new classifications and reclassifications. The total requested value would add 57.2 acres to the open space program and reclassify about 655 acres within the program. Here's a countywide map that shows you the locations of the properties applied for. So PDS recommends the approval of 33 applications and to amend 15 applications. This includes a total of 665 plus 0.17 acres. either being added to the open space program or reclassified within the open space, open space general or open space agricultural conservation programs. The amended applications include roughly 47 acres that were deemed ineligible. The reasonings and findings for each property and the acres chosen to be included are in the staff report. And there's an example of what that looks like here. So here's a total breakdown of every classification change and new open space designation. So the majority of applications were reclassifications from open space farm and agriculture to open space general agricultural conservation. Six of the applications are adding new acreage to the program that were already involved. So I'll just walk you through two examples of the most common open space applications. So the first is the Swetman property, which is one of the six applications that would add new acreage to the program. The applicant applied for 9.1 acres to be placed in the program as open space general, which is the entire parcel. And because there is a home site on the property, PDS amended the application to remove one acre for a net of 8.1 acres to be recommended added to the program. And the criteria for approval in Snohomish County Code that was met was the wetland acreage of at least one quarter acre on the property. Here is a map of that property So you can see quite a bit of wetlands and you can see the parcel boundary with the home site located on it as well One more example is the Schmidt application which would reclassify from farm and AG to open space general agricultural conservation so just like the last example one acre was removed from the eligible acreage because there's a home site on the property and Because the property no longer meets the income requirements for open space farm and agriculture It satisfies criteria 20 a and so much County code as well as the wetland criteria And here is a map for that application as well I So the GIS team in PDS this year created an interactive map application where you can zoom to each property and visually see the parcel boundaries and the critical areas for each application. And that's linked to in the staff report. And you can also view PDF static maps of each application that's also linked in the staff report. So in summary, PDS recommends that all 48 applications be approved with some of the acreage not accepted due to home sites or program eligibility. And with that, I'm available for any questions.

Great. Thank you for that presentation. We really appreciate it. Questions, comments from council?

What's the appeal process if a property owner disagrees with the recommendation?

Unfortunately, I'm not aware Hillary would you be able to that would go through the assessor's office?

Thank you You had mentioned the income requirements I know there are certain circumstances where something has been in open space for a long period of time and then obviously if you're moved from Open space the back taxes have to be paid correct Yes, if you yeah, if you remove it from those taxes have to be back. So what happens if a property is you know, is purchased, and then the person who purchases the property doesn't meet the income requirements, so they automatically have to pay all the...

So in that case, the seller would be required to pay those back taxes unless they sign an agreement that the new property owner would continue that open space classification.

Okay, I understand. Thank you. And then just a quick question. There's one of them, the redesignation of open space agricultural to open space general, it looks like. The acreage recommended for approval increased over what was requested by 0.03 acres, it looks like. Do you know what that was?

Yeah, we worked with the assessor and the applicants on some of those where the application understated how much was actually eligible, so they didn't include the entire acreage of the property. So that, in a couple instances, the recommended approval was actually slightly higher.

Good news for them.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

Other questions or comments? Yeah, Council Member Lipp. So one of the properties in Arlington, there was a constituent that wrote a letter, said that maybe there's some misrepresentation with the property, the one along the river. Is that something that you guys take into effect when you're making this decision? And were they having an issue with something else that was different than what's being considered?

Yeah, good question. So we include any sort of public comment or emails that we also include with the applications that's in the staff report. So that sort of thing is considered when we're looking at the big picture of it.

Okay, other questions, comments? All right, well, thank you again for the presentation. We really appreciate it. Thank you. That will bring us, let's see, is there a move to GLS on the 9th? Is that time and date for public hearing? Okay, so that's where we will move this. And I believe that brings us to the conclusion of our agenda. We have no other committees this afternoon, so we'll be in recess.

Is that good to go on admin matters?

Yes, why don't we put it on admin matters? Thank you. Yeah, thanks. No other committees will be adjourned for the day. Thank you.