Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Next. I got Kevin Pinger is here. If you can hear me. We can. Thank you. Thanks, Kevin.

Welcome to the Wednesday, March 4th, 2026 Thirsten County Planning Commission. The Thirsten County Planning Commission is a resident advisory committee to the board of county commissioners on land use planning matters such as the comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance amendments. Planning commission actions are in the form of recommendations to the county commissioners, the final decision makers. All planning commission meetings are open to the public. Community members are welcome to observe all planning commission briefings and work sessions. Public comment is allowed on these topics for which public hearing has not yet been held. We're going to start off today with uh introductions. We'll start here in the boardroom. Scott Nelson, District 4. Sandy Kaiser, District 3. Uh

Barry Halverson, Yale Marston, District 2. Commissioner Flores, you there? Yes, I'm right here. Lola Flores, District 3, can you hear me? Yes. And Commissioner Fishburn. Bill Fishburn. I live and serve in District 4. And Commissioner Pestinger,

Kevin Pinger, District 5. Thank you very much. With that, I'll hope that everybody has had a chance to uh look over the agenda and if somebody did entertain a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda for for March 2026. Second. Been moved and seconded. All is there any discussion on the agenda? All in favor say I. I. The agenda is accepted. Has everybody had an opportunity to look over the meeting minutes from February 18th, 2026? No, they blew past me. So,

I limit to approve the minutes from February 18th, 2026 and accept the audio as official record. It's been moved. Is there a second on these minutes? I'll second. All in favor accepting the minutes of our February 18th, 2026 meeting and accept the audio as the official record. Say I. I. I. Any opposed?

We have an abstension from Commissioner Pestinger. These meetings are minutes are accepted. All right. With that, we're going to move on to the public communication portion of our meeting. residents, you'll be allowed three minutes if you'd uh tell us. Oh, we have Commissioner Bartlett. Thank you very much. Um, you'll have three minutes if you identify yourself in the area of the county that you live in. Um, that'd be great. And we will start out with Christy White.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Christy White and I live in the Deli Valley in Person County. Uh this evening I respectfully request that chapters 24.15 geological hazards and 24.16 seismic hazards of the CAO not move forward at this time. One week between posting and review does not provide sufficient opportunity for meaningful public input. At a minimum, no CAO chapters should advance until the second planning commission meeting following its posting. This would ensure adequate review time, allow for substance substantive public comment on specific chapter language, and for the application of a review standards checklist. To support a thorough and transparent process, I have prepared a set of minimum review criteria that I respectfully request be applied and presented in a clear public format for each chapter prior to approval. The minimum review standards checklist is to be presented to the planning commission prior to approving of each CIO chapter of FA. For sections where structure and content remain substantially similar to the current code, provide revisions in redline form. For sections with significant changes, include a memorandum summarizing the structural and substantive Secondly, include an opening paragraph in each chapter written in plain language explaining why the protections are necessary and affirming the county's commitment to helping hopefully qualify landowners meet community standards through available technical and financial assistance. Third, ensure each chapter is written in clear plain language so homeowners and

developers can readily understand requirements. Fourth, identify how revisions rely on best available science, including best available science citations within the chapter. Incorporate community input wherever feasible. confirm that climate climate projections are included, adaptive, forward-looking 75 to 100 years and not based on outdated or maladaptive assumptions. Explain each chapter's role in protecting water quality and water quantity. Analyze and estimate each chapter's impact on preventing net loss of habitat and ecosystem functions. Eliminate fragmented or duplicative language and clearly outline compliance requirements. Confirm the chapter is internally cohesive and does not create conflicts with other chapters or codes. For instance, the shoreline master plan. I provided this checklist in just a separate list all by itself outside of this letter. So you have that handy. So I hope we will consider using this for the CA chapters. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Um Betsy, did you

Hi, my name is Betsy Norton. I live in Olympia. Um and my comments basically are um just a portion of what Christy was saying. I just wanted to put it in a slightly different way which is that I would encourage you guys to look at things from a holistic point of view risk and then look at the various code um code compliance items as examples or sort of benchmarks for setting that risk. If you look at whack 365,1 1901 120 for geologic hazards, you'll see kind of how this goes together where they combine the factors that come in to assess the total risk for and apply various constraints of conditions based on being able to lower that risk. And the thing that I would add to that whack is the importance of taking into account impacts on the environment. So that's that's it.

Thank you very much. Phyllis, would you like to anybody else in the boardroom want to address the planning commission? We'll move online to uh uh Miss Blessing. Bye.

Hello. Can you hear me? And thank you.

Oh. Oh. Hello. I would just like to help avoid a a conflict that might be upcoming. Um co I believe that coastal bluffs are considered geological hazard areas or the steep areas near the coast and um uh erosion of coastal blasts are important for p pigeon gilm nesting. I love to to paddle by those areas and I had friends tell me that um if they get too vegetated or if those areas with pigeon gilm mods that are in the coastal bluffs get um have water pipes that go through them they can be eroded and lose that habitat. Pigeon gilmot is a marine marine bird. And then secondly erosion of coastal bluffs is important for forage fish and that are important for salmon and the the smelt. And so we h so as projects move forward in the um in the for near coastal bluffs I know we want to protect them from erosion but at the same time sometimes erosion of those coastal bluffs as a geologic hazard create habitat for certain organisms. So that just may be an area of future um conflict where habitat is almost created by this geologic hazard area yet we want to protect homeowners and not overregulate them but still protect the the erosion potential there that that that creates habitat oddly enough. Um and then and then secondly um I appreciate that uh fences are are an allowed use in um I believe in uh geological hazard areas. We have one probably within a 50ft buffer of a geologic hazard area, a steep slope and it's very convenient. Um so I appreciate that. Um thank you again. So I just wanted to add that coastal bluffs can be habitat. Thanks. That's all I have.

Great. Thank you. Is there anybody else online that would like to address the planning commission? See another hand, but I Oh, Miss Sepan. Hello. Um, thank you for the opportunity to uh speak. Um, I just want to make a couple comments about tonight's topic uh and uh and some forward-looking things. One is I had difficulty as I was reading this document tonight for tonight. Um, first of all, it it was um that I there was no help as to to what might be new. So, I did a comparison. I put the two two documents the old uh code and the new code together and found that indeed there were some changes and and some very helpful changes right in the first part of the document and then after that it was basically almost all the same but as then as I was reading let's say I got over that hurdle um at first but then there were all these words that I didn't know what they meant I mean liquefification uh susceptibility ility uh uh channel migration etc. These are not uh words in my normal vocabulary and I didn't realize that the current code has these definitions at the very beginning of the document and that would have helped me greatly. So I was looking them up online and all that sort of thing. So here's my request for the future is for the uh definitions that are just kind of special for the chapter that we're talking about the particular critical area we're talking about could

they be a pulled out and put in a document that comes along with everything else to aid those of us who are trying to read that chapter to understand the stuff. So that's one request there. Then thinking forward to the future, I I kept thinking about mitigation and mitigation and of course I mitigation normally I guess in critical area ordinances is a section a chapter all by itself. Then I looked at our agenda and I didn't see where mitigation showed up on our agenda to be one of our topics and yet it's probably the mo one of the most important things to consider. So, I'm asking that um to know where mitigation is going to be covered in the future and that I I believe I'm guessing that it's going to be under that little section that's very near the end that's called generic permit process. And I'd sure love to have the staff give us a list of all the things that generic permit process will include. so that I don't have to go, okay, are they going to cover that? Are they not going to cover that? Like, are they going to cover definitions? Like, a definition that you don't have in the current list that I think you should have is co coastal landslide. That's that's the kind of common uh term for the Carine Beach area is a coastal coastal landslide that that you should um you know that you're going to need to add that. and so we can double check these things as we're going through the process. If you would uh tell us when you're going to cover all of these other topics. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I don't believe there's anybody else online. Is there? All right. Well, with that, we'll um return to staff to talk about um public communication debrief and see if there's any commentary that staff can add. I don't know if we want to go how we want to do these. We want to go one by one or hit notes and we can kind of So I think we had a couple um that were a little bit more sub substantive and then uh we had quite a lot on the process. I think we could address

so um to Miss Blessings points I think we do in the in the best available science actually address um feeder bluffs probably in a couple different ways. I know we in this section specifically uh she was talking about the way that uh some of these bluffs contribute sediment and how important that is for uh habitat forming processes on beaches. So that's how we get our beaches in a lot of cases is from uh inputs of sediment from feeder bluffs. So those are important from both a habitat standpoint and they can be a substantial risk to uh human infrastructure. So

when when she was talking about that, I know that when we did S&P, we actually talked about feeder bluffs quite a bit and protecting them, but one of the interesting things that she brought up is how storm water outfalls convey and can change how feeder bluffs react. And I know that when I was reading some of her other work that she had done coming on with the uh drainage manual, that all kind of feeds in together. Um, do we should we be addressing storm water outfalls in feeder blast directly or is that going to be something that we can even have jurisdiction over? That has to go through the DDCM. I would think that that would have to go through the that would need to go through the manual. It's going to be a sightby-sight um assessment. So, the the goal is to make sure that that storm water doesn't impact the the bluffs. So, it can be a risk in a couple different ways. Uh, Miss Blessing mentioned the the actual pipes in there and erosion. Some of those are intended to keep it from eroding.

Yeah. Um, and uh some of the strategies for managing storm water can put more water in the ground, which is a key factor for landslide risk. So, it's a it's a really sensitive area and I think we probably want to defer to engineers on how to keep both the bluffs stable and homes on top of them and not in the water, right?

Um, and then I think there were some comments on uh kind of the process and the timeline. So, this is our first section of code that we've brought to the planning commission. So, this is a bit of a a trial run um to see how it works and like how how much input um folks have. We've always kind of assumed that there would be there would be a circle back on it. So, this wouldn't be a uh you all give us the stamp of approval and we run off and codify something. So, you don't need any decisions, final decisions today on any chapters.

This is this is kind of like we did with the uh the comprehensive plan. This would be an opportunity to get feedback um from both the community and the planning commission on what uh folks would like to see uh updated in the codes. So in these drafts. So that is the intention. So I don't think we're uh trying to run away with the the process too fast for everybody. We do want to make space for planning commission and the community to be able to provide input. Kind of the whole goal. Um, Miss Sepen had a few questions that she or a few items that she brought up and and I might not have condensed these down very well, but having a glossery is probably the lowhanging fruit there. So, adding in a glossery would probably be great. And then um maybe some clarifications about whether this is actually a repeal and replace or if this is just an update. I believe it's just an update. And then maybe if there was some sort of matrix that could be provided that would differentiate old and new. What what is actually if this is a a update very specifically what's being updated and what's being left alone?

Oh well it is a repeal and replace. Um there are just certain sections I would say that don't necessarily need to be rewritten. they're just like if if it holds up and the language exists, we can bring it into the new um section, but it is intended to be a repeal place. Um so part of the structure of the presentation tonight and of these types of check-ins where we come and show the code to you guys is to highlight the key points where um where things have changed. Um but we can also talk about if that should change in the future. Open to direction on that. So

yeah, I don't know how deep in we need to get on those, but at least uh some kind of high level what are the big changes would be good to articulate. Yeah, we could do I'm picturing kind of a cover sheet that has a glossery and then just maybe even says like based on the heading of each section in the title like this one has changes versus this one we are continuing with the existing language. um just to help highlight where to look without um getting too nitty-gritty for something that is going to be a repeal and replace versus update. Commissioner Bartlett,

I like that idea a lot. Um I'm wondering if in cases like uh the the changing definition that was just mentioned regarding um regarding uh storm water uh storm out flows and cliffs like with things like that where we don't really have the jurisdiction but we are noticing that there's something missing. It seems like we could be having a little bit of anformational panel that would be there for people like for people who are taking this this code into account to just be aware that that is something that they should be taking into account even if there's not like a mandate that we can enforce for that.

Yeah, I think we try to use language in the code. Um, and this I can check on the specifics of this one. Um, like the specific issue, but we try to include language where if we know that somebody is going to need to also comply with other regulations. Yeah, I was thinking, you know, so if somebody is if if we're writing regulations about a septic system saying where you can and can't put it per the CIO, we might also mention that your septic system needs to comply with um the health environmental health department um as an example. Yeah. number 10 on this uh chapter checklist. Merson.

Yeah. Uh there is there a way that when you send out these revisions and stuff for review that you just track changes? Yeah. I mean it's harder with the peel and replace. I know it is. So yeah, but I do it all the time with with stuff that I send to the county on LMD stuff. They want to see what we've changed like I did just today on the county uh healthy elect website. Yeah. I mean we're there's no reason that we could not use track changes. Yeah. Because that would make it a simple process of identifying what was there what's being changed. We might want to send a clean copy and a track changes copy

as well. Yeah. Both. I think yeah I still I have a hard time with the legibility of track changes without also being able to look at a clean copy. I still like the idea of having one condensed appendix too of these are the major changes that are happening in this document. Yeah. So it sounds like it would be the the clean version with the major changes addendum on it and changes way too.

Yeah. And uh Miss Stephano was also talking about um in the generic um permit processing and I I think maybe she was getting at um do we have a mitigation sequencing that we are going to be doing with that and if so has that been fleshed out yet? Uh it has not been fleshed out yet. Um but yes, I think mitigation and mitigation sequencing would be part of the general provisions. Uh and that's where that's going to end up living later. Yeah, we could start adding to that like what is what does general provisions comprise. So

yeah, I pulled up in the code kind of out of curiosity and they're not all very long chapters, but it is several chapters that would fall under that. Um, basically because the way we have it set up right now, we're kind of hitting the five main for the critical areas themselves. And then there's various sort of permit process related and general provisions, chapters. Um, there's one specific to subdivisions, signs and fencing, tracks and delineations, shity agreements, and bonds. So there's some of those like housekeeping kind of chapters almost um that relate less to things like best available science but are still part of all that process stuff but then mitigation sequencing and mitigation also does relate to the best available science. So um it could be worth adding um a session if you think it would be necessary but uh we could also just cover it when we do permit process. I would think that at some point you're going to have to generate new materials for the public for the BDC when people come in so they know what they're going to have to do and that would all be processed together or developed together at the same time, wouldn't it?

Maybe I mean well the like forms and applications types of things and then yeah I'm not entirely clear. Yeah, I mean, we'll need to make sure that all the application forms we use at the BDC reflect the code update. And then I also would really love to see us work with our education and outreach team to make fact sheets for the front counter or um even just like a quick handbook so that people could flip through and understand. A handbook would be great. When we were doing SMP, we kind of had a handbook while we had a mitigation sequencing that we were able to show residents this is what you're going to have to do. I think having something for CIA would be appropriate too.

Have stuff for SMP ready to roll when we have an SMP. I could feel like your blood pressure go up. Got some materials. Yeah, it's a great idea. Absolutely. And in the past we did get a grant to do that. So, um we're scrimping and scrging available resources. Oh, okay. Okay. Um, was there any other um public communication debriefing that we should probably address?

Uh, not unless you all heard something else you want to talk about. Um, we could just to hit it briefly, we could also hit um um Miss White's checklist of of how we should go through this and what your thoughts are on it and how that should be incorporated or addressed. I think we talked about number one

summarizing the differences. Um I think number two um available technical and financial assistance. uh that's going to be tough. Um and that would come way later down the line. So um and it would move over time. So that would be hard to have something about available resources and financial assistance in the code. It's more programmatic um and very discretionary uh for the county. So we don't have a lot of control over that. So we would need additional resources to be able essentially to be able to provide most of that.

Um I think plain language is a great goal. Uh the best available science citations within the chapter I think we are at least doing some of that are we? Yeah. um when we are suggesting something like I think the one of the examples for this is like a certain type or level of report um that would need to follow or show a certain methodology then we point to sources for that methodology

um and I think that's a fairly standard level of citation um it's I would say not really a common practice to do like regular citations within an actual code chapter uh community input wherever feasible. I think um that would be that would be our hope that we'd be able to do that.

So um I I do want to be want to be clear. I think at this point uh primarily our our hope and intention is that that uh that the planning commission is a place to kind of synthesize and metabolize some of that as well. So rather than it being um kind of staff discretion to hear something, you guys just don't want to do 40 open houses over the next summer. I mean it could be fun.

Um climate projections. Um, I think we would we would need to rely on the available science and I think to actually I would be a little bit nervous about putting actual uh including actual projections in the in the document itself because those are pretty pretty new. They move pretty frequently. Um, and we get new uh new information almost constantly. So, so we can at least bring it in as a goal or maybe not even a policy, but at least as a goal to incorporate climate change in our best available science as a reference, not as codified.

Yeah, I think in the best available science, um, absolutely the climate projections, um, I'm assume we're we're talking about things like sea level rise and rainfall temperature, those those types of projections. Um that's really really complicated. Uh we're doing a really in-depth analysis right now. For example, um our climate water planning team is to try and identify which of the like 14 climate models best predicts different parts of the county. So there are trade-offs between all of them. To you know bring one in would be would be really difficult. Um, so I would say that the the work itself is is deeply informed by um the best available science on climate and I think it'd be hard to incorporate it. So I I'll leave it there.

Have any of those better predictor than others? Have you identified? It really depends on like what you're trying to predict and um what you're trying to where you are and it would depend like which one you want to use would depend on what you're trying to do. So there are tradeoffs with each of them. We've we've got a the graphs are really cool. Yeah. Um we might want to bring one sometimes. Um, it's that seems like one of those cases where like the the best situation is just to site your sources on that or like have that be something that's available to folks to know which model you're using and why. Yeah.

Um, which is Yeah. Which seems like it could just be a footnote almost to a to a to like the kind of model you're using. Yeah. And I think that that can be brought in the best available science. I wouldn't put it into the code. Um the the other thing that we're our intention is with the with this update is that we wouldn't spend so long between critical areas updates like they are intended to be updated when best available science changes. So part of what we're doing here is like starting a more like regular cycle of opening up the critical areas so that we can uh we can incorporate new information. Do you think you're going to have resourcing for that?

Um, it would be we'd probably do like smaller changes. So, you know, maybe every couple years if there's like a a big kind of scientific change in the literature or something, we could we could open up specific pieces. We wouldn't do the whole thing. Like part of what we're doing here is setting a foundation that it's easier to like do um kind of routine maintenance.

Yeah. I would also say just to the um the climate projections while I agree that like it's difficult to codify an actual projection we are trying to in referencing best available science that is just taking those projections into consideration trying to take out the policy recommendations from that and utilize them. I think uh one of the examples being for a couple different critical areas considering channel migration zones is pretty important especially with climate change because there are variety of sort of meteorological and other natural process events that might um increase the frequency or speed of channel migration. Um, so like, so rather than trying to say in the code exactly where the channel is going to go, just focusing on policies that protect development from channel migration is more so how it shows up in the code, I would say.

Yeah. Moving on to number eight. I think Kevin has his hand up. Oh, Commissioner Pinger.

Yeah, just a couple related questions. Uh, first one is about what you were just talking about related to sea level rise. And as I understand it, the city of Olympia has hired some consultants to do some sea level rise estimates. And I'm wondering if the county is at all piggybacking on those or doing any of their own sea level rise estimates. And then related to that, I had a question about are there any like I've heard there's at least 10 or 15 Olympia city properties that they're considering recommending bunkering against sea level rise. Um are there any county properties that are being considered for such stuff as bunkering? And then the other question also for staff is um I think on Saturday the department of ecology is doing a open house related to the dash esttory restoration project and I know the county is participating at least paying part of the bill for that giant project. Is the county in any way involved with that open house or participating with it?

Um I'll start with your last one. Um not that I know of. I don't know. Does anybody else know somebody? They're not. Okay. Um Yeah. County. Not that I know of. Um for the Dashes estate restoration, that's the Department of Ecologies project around it at this point. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Um the bunkering question I will say not that I know of. And then sea level rise, I will I will say that the city of Olympia is in a much different situation than the county circumstance. um in that there are major portions of the city proper that are likely to fall victim to the effects of sea level rise in a way that the county won't experience. Um so with the county it would be we'd be looking at things like we talked about with uh like saltwater intrusion in the Nisquali Delta. So really different kinds of challenges at the county than at the city. The county doesn't have any provisions for bunkering at all.

Not that I know of. So, and I I don't know of any county facilities that would need it. So, but uh we have That's what I saw. I just wanted to make sure. Thank you. Yeah. And it's a forward-looking project that we have. We put in application for a grant that we did not get maybe get in the future. Uh but with the Department of Commerce to do a uh sea level rise vulnerability assessment at the county. So, that's a forward-looking um task for the county that we all put in the comp plan. So, that's great to know. Thanks. I think we are on number eight.

Um yep, we are at number eight. Um that one would be a diffic I think that would be a difficult project and it would be pretty circular. um our requirement is for no net loss and that's what the analysis would essentially say given that it's kind of this presumptive um this presumptive regulatory framework. Um so that's essentially what it was it would say we might be able to do something like identify where there would be opportunities for net gain in ecosystem function

be good. Um, so that could be something that we incorporate that might be a little bit more informative. So an example of that might be um like replacing septic systems in a critical area buffer. That would be a place where you might actually get a net gain in function if you replace a failing septic system. Are we going to be tracking that programmatically and obviously project directly but programmatically? Well, and is are we going to track that in a way other than tracking and requiring mitigation?

Um, programmatically, not necessarily. Um, it will be mostly case by case. Um, so it's the the thing that really has the impact is the application at a specific site. So it'll be the if we were trying to analyze each chapter's impact uh we would essentially get the answer the answer would essentially be no net loss every time. Um it might function differently when you actually look at a site. It might function differently when you look when you zoom out and look at the landscape. When we do a uh no net loss uh calculation, what metrics are we going to be measuring besides ecosystem function? um there are functions and values that uh we're supposed to preserve. So that is the focus of the critical areas ordinance. Is there a deeper question there?

Well, sometimes it seems like the metrics that we actually measure and the metrics in our are more aspirational. I'm wondering which ones we can actually measure and not just hope for. Well, we are doing so we we got uh about $500,000 to work with the uh conservation district and we're going to be building out a framework to measure kind of at a landscape scale uh the basically whether or not we're uh below our no net loss threshold, we're meeting it or we're in a net gain scenario. So u that will be an exercise in looking at uh all of those functions and values that were required to protect through all these regulations. We'll be looking at how you could measure that and how you could know whether or not um you know in a specific basin whether or not you're actually meeting that no net loss and then um trying to see if there's delta and what you might be able to turn as far as dials. So that's an exciting project. It's just building out the framework. I would say there are no promises built on that. But

who's do who's writing the RFP for that? Um, we got the grant. So, we are uh like Andy and I today were working on the scope of work to send back to the Department of Commerce. So, but we're working with the Thirsten Conservation District. Um they recently hired uh someone who left the federal government at Noah um who has a really deep background in natural resource damage assessment. So um kind of a perfect kind of person to figure out how to quantify okay gains and losses because that's the hard part, right? It's not really been done.

No, it has. Yeah. The state has been trying to do this for about four or five years um to come up with a framework for net ecological gain and uh we decided that we'd take a crack at it. Who g who gave the grant? Which institution? Uh the department of commerce. It's climate commitment funds through their uh salmon recovery and local planning grant program. Right. nine. Uh nine um I think we would very much like to also do that.

We agree. Um and then 10 also. So um if if you find instances where we have not met those thresholds, please point them out. Thank you. Thank you for addressing them, though.

All right. Well, with that we'll move on to uh work session number 10, geological hazardous area update and code review with Blair and get right into her presentation. So, sorry. No, I thought they were gonna stay. You're a drug dealer. You're a drug dealer.

I'll have you. Thank you. Yeah. Not a Girl Scout cookie chef this year. It's the season. Wow.

All right. So, as we've touched on already, we're going to be talking about the geologically hazardous areas um code draft, which you've all hopefully had time to look over. um the structure for tonight's presentation. The presentation part's pretty brief to leave some time for um conversation as well. Uh we'll talk about the goals and framework of the update. So the kind of overarching idea behind the changes that have been made. Um we'll do an overview of those changes, kind of dive in a little more as to what they actually are. Um and then leave time for any remaining questions or discussion. So the goals of the changes that were made um and and the kind of framework and thinking behind it were to ensure that all the requirements so if somebody knows they have a geologically hazardous area they're easy to navigate in one place one chapter um obviously there are other chapters like permit processes mitigation things like that that will also apply um to make sure that the designations designations being um how we determine like what counts as and where loca where the areas are located. Um having those designations tied directly to publicly accessible data so that when you go to our geodata website you can pull up a map look at your property and see very clearly yes I do or no I don't have to do permitting for this specific critical area. uh creating clear pathways outlined for different projects, different levels of investigation, different requirements, so that it's also clear once you have looked at that map um what your next steps are, what you're actually going to have to plan to uh pay for or spend time on. Um creating a balance of flexibility and protection. This is a big one across the board. Like these are both important things to do and as much as possible, we hope they don't conflict with each other. um and try try and create regulations that get the most out of

both. So um allowing people freedom and flexibility to use their property while also protecting the environment um creating no net loss and not in this case uh putting human life and property at risk uh to hazards. And we hope that all of the language and requirements are grounded in positive environmental and safety outcomes. And that's where the best available science comes in. trying to use techniques or requirements that we know will relate directly to positive outcomes. Making sure nothing feels arbitrary. So, as I mentioned, the framework overall how it's kind of set up the designations and standards are all in one place. The difference between those things again, the designations tell us where something is and what counts as being that critical area. So, what is a geologically hazardous area? what features on the landscape point to the potential presence of a hazard. Um, and then the standards, if you have that, then what do you do about it? What uh restrictions, rules, regulations, requirements apply to development or changes in those designated areas. Uh, easy to follow review pathways. So, trying to really clearly outline upfront what people can expect when they do need to come to us for a permit. Um, which includes clearly outlining reporting requirements upfront. I remember that being a big takeaway from the um initial kind of exercise we did where you all saw what a conversation at the front counter looks like. Sometimes it's hard for people to know until they've already started paying for a permit exactly what types of report they will need. So, as much as we can make that easier for people in the code right up front, um that's that's a good approach to take. Um and then flexibility based on the project details. Um, and that relates to some of the goals that I just mentioned, but balancing flexibility and protection and also making sure that when we ask people to do things that it's grounded in an outcome. Uh, and if there is a way

for somebody to achieve what they want to do with their property while also not sacrificing and causing a net loss of ecological function or putting them in danger. Um, that our code allows us to find those solutions. Okay. So the major changes that uh were drafted in this code, we added uh designation criteria to the chapter. Previously that was housed only in the in the definitions chapter which I know definitions came up in public comment as well. So in the code as a whole in the whole 24 title for critical areas, there's one definitions chapter that applies to all the other chapters in that title. Um, and that currently in the code includes essentially the designations for each critical area. What features of the landscape point to the presence of that critical area for legibility sake and also to take the room to really kind of expand out what those features are, what maps they're located on, how people can know if they have them. But they I've added that to the top of the code essentially. So that's the first thing someone sees is how to figure out whether or not you have a geologically hazardous area on your property. Um, it also establishes specific ref areas based on those mapped features. So, it's not just like say if there's a slope on a property, you're not just saying, okay, well, there's a slope somewhere on my property. I have to get a permit. We're looking at how far or how close would your structure have to be for that permit to essentially be triggered. Um, that's a question that we're going to talk a little bit more about at the end. Um, because there's a couple options for how we do that. Uh we're referencing the new DNR landslide mapping. Uh we had DNR come to present on that. It is a really exciting resource because it gives us a really clear idea where some of the most hazardous areas are as far as geologic hazards. Um, so that way when someone

has that specific type of feature on their property that's based in that LAR data, we can be really confident about asking them for the reporting, making sure that they're going to be safe, um, and that there's not going to be impact to that known hazard area. Uh, related to all of that, uh, we also outlined specific requirements for different levels of geological investigation. Um so when someone needs to hire a geotechnical professional they um there's multiple levels of investigation that can occur. Um and the difference is between a one to two page letter and a 90page report. So there's kind of a spectrum there of reporting and that's one of the issues that a lot of our applicants currently have is being unsure as to which where they fall on that spectrum based on the details of their project and property. So, we've tried to outline that really clearly so that people can say, "Okay, I'm going to need to talk to somebody about a 20page memo, but not a 90-page report. Um, so that they have a better expectation for their permit process." um at recommendation from uh some of our subject matter experts, we're also looking at expanding the scope of some of the special overlay districts and that's just to help protect people who are specifically near areas like the Nquali Bluff and the Carle Beach landslide and a couple other similar known um kind of major landslide hazard areas. Uh and then parallel to this uh our folks in Geodata are also working with new NRCS soil data. Soil data is pretty significant to geologically hazardous areas. Obviously, it's speaks a lot to the structure of the ground on a given site. Uh it helps us determine whether or not there could be a landslide or erosion hazard on a site. Uh as well as things like soil liquefaction. Um so incorporating that in both our mapping and in how we reference things in our code. Um in particular how we determine what an erodable soil is. Um we're incorporating that as well.

So our remaining questions at this stage um when we're talking about those review areas, so say there's somebody has a designated feature like a 40% slope on their property, how close would their building envelope essentially have to be to that feature in order to start needing a permit? And what this dial does is essentially help us determine the boundary between how many people are actually having to come to us to get these permits and how many and what the outcome of that permitting is. If right now people within 400 ft are coming for a permit, 400 feet of any of the features that are listed as a designation for landslide hazard areas. Um, and that is much larger than any of the jurisdictions that I could find. um because it's also not super clearly spread spelled out in our current code. Um so what a lot of I have it written down actually. So Scadget, uh Snomish and Kitap all use 200 feet. Watcom County uses 300 ft. Uh and Pierce County theirs is actually specific to the type of hazard designation landscape feature. Um and they have a lot of dials in there. There's ranges from 65 to 300 ft depending on the mapped features you have. They also have a lot of mapping resources that are kind of proprietary and unique to them. Um, so we we'd want to probably come down from 400 feet because that's bringing a lot of people to our permitting counter for a situation where they're probably just getting letters that say that they're outside of a buffer and they probably would have known that anyway because it's pretty rare for us to encounter a 400 foot buffer. Um, so that's something that is a policy decision that we could look to

you all for. um some guidance on how far to turn up or down that specific type of dial. Um should we air towards bringing more people in for review or should we air towards having less people come in for review? Are you talking about a letter that's going out to everybody that's within these geological hazard areas that are within 400 ft of a geological hazard is telling them that they have to come in for a review. That's everybody countywide.

Uh so it is countywide. It's not them receiving a letter from us. It is um if if somebody is building on their property and the building they're proposing requires a permit and it's within 400 ft of a mapped feature that is pointing us to think that there might be a hazard there, they're getting a carp. Okay. So, they're if they file a permit for a construction or building, then they're getting this letter. Yeah. They're they're we're basically telling them you need a critical areas review permit because you're within 400 feet of a designated area. What we're seeing with other counties is that they're having that same type of permit trigger at something more like 200 feet.

But it is when someone's proposing a development. We're going to go commissioner Bartlett then online. Is there a differentiation between commercial and residential in this context? in this context there there's currently not um that it's something that could be done. It's not how I have it the language currently set up. I mean it just it seems to make sense given the difference in how people would want to use it and also the the the amount of use that it would get, the amount of risk that you'd see. Commissioner Pester,

thank you. Um, just curious, you mentioned at 400 ft we get quite a few people at our counter over this. Can you give us any numbers about how many people per year over this? Uh, no. I don't have those numbers specifically ballpark anything is 10, 100, a thousand. We just did a BDC by the numbers, but I don't know if it included carps.

Yeah. If if our buffer for a carp is at 400 feet, what is the buffer for a building envelope in general? Like what's the maximum buffer that we have? So like if we're looking at 40% slopes, if you can't build within 200 feet of a 40% slope anyways, what's the value of requiring a carp that goes all the way out to 400 feet if somebody wants to build at 300 feet?

Right. So the the for across the critical areas, the largest buffers that I'm familiar with are 300 foot wetland buffers. Um, and that's off the top of my head. Um, and so then that's also assuming 100 feet of wiggle room for mapping and accuracy, I believe, is the kind of logic behind the 400 ft. Um, for geologically hazardous areas, we tend to see smaller buffers unless somebody is really up next to a very large feature. the standard buffer calculations um that are in the code are 50 feet or 45 degrees angle up from the bottom of the slope essentially. Um and so that second one depends more on how large the feature is. Um but you can assume a 50 foot minimum kind of um which is much smaller than 400 ft. Yeah, it seems like that this carp could be not very useful to a lot of people, especially in, you know, on these coastal bluffs. We have the SMP that's already pushing in the rural area is already pushing them back 200 feet,

making them get a carp to go all the way out to 400 feet. Just that seems like 1,500 bucks in the toilet. Most properties aren't that deep anyway. Yeah. Well, a lot of those are long, skinny five acres out in the county. Um, so it'd be very easy for me to say that on things like like steep slopes that a 400 foot buffer is probably too much. Yeah. So, I think we can I based on the research of what other counties do, I would say 200 feet is a pretty fair review buffer if you all agree. What what number were you thinking? 200 feet. 200 feet,

which would also match the the coastal requirements for the SMP. That I would feel better about the world at 200 feet than I would at 400 feet on on those. Okay. Like useful regulation. This seems like less useful. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we had a huge conversation about setbacks for the S&P and 200 was a long that's that's a big setback. We talked 50 100. Yeah. And we ended with 200. Yeah.

And this that we're talking about here works a little differently than the S&P just to to clarify. This is just to trigger the need for the permit at all. The permit then would determine what the actual setback from the whatever the hazard area is the designation. Um so this is just to set off the process for reviewing looking at. So if somebody is within the buffer we're talking about right now. They're going to be talking to a geotechnical professional. They're going to be coming to us for a critical area review permit. And that process is going to determine how close their building essentially can be to that hazard area. Okay. So, Commissioner Peser had a good question about how many of these do we have? I know how to answer. I just remembered how I can answer.

Okay, so um our team uh so Mark Beaver on our team, he reviews all of the geotechnical reports and he will do between like three and five maybe six a week. So those are those are people who are they might be uh rightfully within that review area but that's about how many we geotechnical reports that we see come through that we review. So going to 200 feet would essentially cut that number in half. Yeah. It's usually usually five or six a week that Mark is doing. He sets his entire Friday aside to do it. This week he's low. He's got three, but don't tell anybody he might get more. A long question.

Yeah. So, just to hire a geologist to do this is fairly expensive for a homeowner. My grandson's a geologist and I know how much he charges. So, that's an expense that they have. Uh, then they have the expense of uh the report which should be coming as a part of that. Then the permit. How much is the permit cost? just went up a little bit. I think it's 700 700 and something. I don't remember the specific number, but it is it's not a inexpensive process. And that's just to find out if you require one.

Well, that's part of what we're hoping to do in this code draft is that you at least know going into paying for that carp.

Yeah. what level of reporting you're going to have to pay for from a geologist and allowing explicitly for different levels which cost different amounts of money of report from that geologist depending on what you want to do for your property. And that that's part of the flexibility aspect is allowing somebody if they really want their house to be close to that view that they're getting from the cliff that they want to be by um then they might be paying more as far as getting a geotechnical expert goes. But if someone is willing to set their house outside of the standard buffer or even out of the buffer we're discussing right now, you know, the the kind of carp trigger area, they're they're taking themselves out of that process. And obviously, it depends on the constraints of someone's property. So, it's not always a choice, but hopefully it at least allows for flexibility for different situations.

Is there any provision? Say a somebody wants to build a house and they know that they're butting up a 40enter um beforehand and they don't want to bother with the carp and they're just going to go right to their engineer and find an engineering solution for pushing up against that bluff. Is there a way that they can avoid some of this by just going straight to an engineering report?

Yeah. So that the code includes provisions for that pretty much that situation where somebody you you The way it's set up is there's a standard buffer. Um, and if you want to observe that standard buffer, and that's what I described, the 50 feet and the 45 degree angle, then you need less a lower level of a geological report. Essentially, you need enough of report to establish where that buffer is and the fact that you're outside of it, but that's it. If you want to and your engineers said, well, I think you could be closer than that standard buffer to that cliff. That's when you have the opportunity to get a higher level of geological investigation, pay more for that report essentially. Um, and the carp would facilitate you being able to go closer.

Would would you still be required to do like a um um a reasonable use exception or see the hearing examiner or anything else like that? If you did get a engineering solution to a building problem,

the reasonable use exception would come in. So, say you are taking the option to get the highest level of geological investigation. You want to be 40 ft from the cliff instead of 50 ft. Um, and your engineer does say that that is safe, that there's an engineering solution that allows for that, that it's not going to cause an increase in risk that landslide or erosion hazard or whatever. So, we're meeting no net loss and you're safe, then that is just your carp and your permit. if it's a situation where the your engineer essentially is recommending a larger buffer than what you want. So even at that high level of geological investigation um where your engineer is saying no you really do need to be 50 or 55 or 100 or however many feet away from this that's where we would come into play under this

I guess where I've seen a problem before I don't know if you're familiar with the area down by uh Sunwood Lakes on Don Hill Road it kind of is up on a bluff that looks down over horse pasture but from the road to the top of the hill is very narrow and if you have a 50-foot setback and then you have a building envelope, you're often pushed up against the road in a way that you couldn't do anything. Your building envelope turns out to be 8 foot wide strip. And so with a good engineering solution, I would think that, you know, if you're gonna spend 10 grand on a good engineering report and then another 40 grand on an engineering solution, going through a carp and uh the substantial development permit and a hearings examiner and a public notice and all that would be a bit much.

Yeah. So it it's hard to answer because it would still just depend on the details of the specific site and the specific project. If the engineer is able to establish a safe uh buffer or a you know a compliant buffer based on their report then and we review that and accept it that wouldn't be an RUE. If we're looking at you are going inside of the buffer that your engineer has recommended that would be an RU. Okay. I guess that's basically where I'm getting down to is how how much are we going to accept from an engineer and I would hope that we would accept a lot from a qualified engineer. Yeah, it this update is we're accepting more under this code than we would now.

But one point to add on to that, if that engineered solution still puts you halfway into your shoreline buffer or that's a whole different story. You're still going to be held to whatever provisions that would enable you to reduce that buffer. may not be as much, but yeah, you can't engineer your your way into the water. Yes. Yeah. You're probably going to be subject to an RU for a different type of critical area regardless. But if somebody is really in a situation where their only critical area is this geological hazard area, their engineer says it's okay to go beyond what our essential our standard buffer is, then we're okay with that. Okay. Commissioner Passinger had

Commissioner Pinger. Thank you. Um, I I'm just trying to follow this conversation and understand what we're trying to accomplish. And it seems, you know, this is critical areas and and this is hazardous areas. And that in some ways, especially steep slopes, we're trying to protect people from building in a way that would be likely to get damaged or people to get harmed. But it also seems like in maybe areas like shoreline stuff, it has to do with not just damage, but also ecological function. Um, and I think those are kind of two different things. I'm more interested in protecting against environmental damage and and potential damage that people could incur than worrying about somebody building a building that might get damaged. Uh which I'm less worried about their insurance and their engineers should care more about that. It should be less our concern. Um, I'm curious from the county's perspective if environmental like climate change factors like one of the ones we know is that we're going to have more and different types of storms both drought and rainfall. If we had a larger, longer flooding period, um does that increase the likelihood of damage from liquefaction or from um even more likely things like erosion and and slides and whatnot. And is that already in consideration? the climate change models have been taken into consideration in terms of why we determined to set these buffers or um has that not yet been considered until we have more data.

So I would say that um we do know that that that really should have an impact like one of the the biggest factors for landslides for example is how saturated the ground is. Um that's a primary landslide kind of risk factor. So we would expect that. Um I would say that the where that would really come into play is again probably a like sightby-sight assessment. So working with your geotechnical engineer to make sure that something is going to be safe. Um there I think there are some cases I'm not going to speak specifically to geohhazards but where like the engineering standards use backwards looking data. Um, I know one of the things we're doing at the county is trying to bring in forwardlooking projections um into some of the models that people use to engineer um storm water facilities specifically. But that is that is that can be a challenge.

Just as far as the um sorry just to follow on as far as the um sharing of the data of three to six uh reports a week your engineer has to deal with that's that's not insignificant. That's 150 to 300 a year uh or more. And I would be at that point in favor of reducing a buffer because that seems like a pretty heavy load for the county. Um I wouldn't presume that cutting it from 400 to 200 would cut that number in half. Um but do you have any data that would say how much it might cut it by?

I don't have any data. All I really know is what u how many geotech reports Mark tells me he's working on on a week-by-week basis. So I mean I would then request that at least a ballparkish. How many of them are less than 200? How many are 200 to 400? If you could tell us that I think I'd feel very comfortable if it's a reasonable number that we could cut out. I'd be much more comfortable supporting that reduction.

Yeah. And I think we're going to see two things here as well. So like having clearer criteria for the geotech reports is going to be really helpful for getting good geotech reports that don't need as much review. Also having really clear standards could allow us to um actually have outside design review or geotech review on the geotech. I love that. So I could see if I could see if Mark could give us a ballpark number. Yeah, ballpark's great. Thank you, Commissioner

Barley. Uh well, uh Commissioner Passenger did get to one of my points, which is just that probably that this was not a normal distribution. Um and then, uh but uh and just to re-emphasize the the reasons to be a little bit less concerned about like the the uh the the structural damage than the like larger community damage. is that like um a lot of these like good engineering fixes would still not be insurable um as I'm sure uh Daniel could tell us uh that uh a lot of a lot of this is going to be mitigated by other factors anyways and those

that is also true um especially at the growth management hearing boards level it there's kind of a divide in critical areas where the primary ary functions being protected are either like safety and damage to human property or ecological function. Um and this is something that is more so enshrined at the state level and we have to work within. Um, but the nice thing I think about a lot of these geologically hazardous areas when it comes to the more environmental side as opposed to human life safety side, um, is that a lot of these are going to then have overlaps. If if there's a a strong habitat function like with a channel migration zone, which is geologically hazardous in the case of being an erosion hazard, those are probably going to overlap with things like fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas and flood planes as well. Um, so there are a lot of situations where the different critical areas overlap and they all just still apply where they overlap. Um, so a lot of geologically hazardous areas get the benefit of the the buffers and protections that also apply to other critical areas. when you talked to um Mark about um how many homes are in the zero to 200 and the 200 to 400, could you also ask him if he could kind of thumbnail for us are most of these what percentage of these are single family or single family related like a shop or a garage versus all other uses? cuz I

I got a feeling that most of this is for single family use and we're not seeing commercial developments or anything like that but some of it might be farm related or something like that but it'd be interesting to know how much this directly affects owner living. I'm putting a team's chat question to Mark as we speak. He won't respond to that. Yeah. A lot more interested in having significant buffers if we're talking about something that you're going to have a lot of like customers coming through and people like people having a lot higher risk. Yeah. As opposed to someone's house. But I imagine that out in the rural county that this is going to be mostly single family homes and single family home related. No. Okay.

No, my question got answered. Thank you. Oh, there we go. Okay. Um, and then the only other really remaining question on this code is are there any concerns or ideas that have that you felt were missing from the draft or questions you had about the draft? Um, just anything else left for discussion or desired changes. Um, we've already gone over a couple of things, but anything else to bring up? Our speakers today actually got to a lot of the issues that I wanted to bring. Yeah. No, I guess.

Well, actually, yeah, that easier than I thought it was going to be. So, here's where we are in the schedule. We've just finished talking about the geohhazards code presentation. Um, next time we come to you, we'll be looking at frequently flooded areas and critical aquifer recharge areas uh code presentations. Um, so it's two chapters at once. Uh, as a spoiler, the critical recharge areas code doesn't need as many updates as some of the other ones do. So, that one should go pretty quickly. Um, and the flood areas what probably what we we will be what we spend a lot of time talking about next time.

Anybody else have anything for Claire? All right. Going to move on to uh uh staff updates. All right. Um, we have staff updates about staff tonight. So, we've been able to bring on a handful of new people. Got my list here. Um, with us tonight joining us, you'll see a new face over here. This is Nim Vich. She is our new associate planner. And as bureaucrats are almost always known by their predecessor, um, Nim is the new Natalie. Oh.

Um, we also have a new building services supervisor that is John Moore and a new planning tech at the counter um who is AJ Stern. So, some new people coming on. Um, we did also um offer and had accepted a um for the uh storm water coordinator position. Oh, so we have a new hireer who will be joining us on April 1st. Where did they come from? Uh, she comes from the Department of Ecology by way of Long Live the Kings, the Nisquali River Foundation and before that worked with the legislature and then with uh OM for a while in

Really? Yeah. Huh. So, um, all right. Emily McCarten will be joining us. Um, do we have any other exciting staff updates? All right. Well, guess we'll look at our agendas then. So, our next meeting is uh March 18th. Is anybody thinking that they will or will not or not be able to make that one? I'll be able to be there. I'll be here.

Great. Looks like we'll have everybody. And then after that would be April 1st. I know I will not be here for April 1. So, Commissioner Kaiser will be keeping everybody in line. Anybody else think they'll be missing anything? Not at that point. You are playing April Fools. I'm sorry.

All right. Well, does anybody have anything for the good of the order? Having no further business, this meeting is adjourned. You recommend that folks check out that Noli sub area issues thing by interesting. Yes. Go first