Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the Wednesday, March 18th, 2026 Thirstston County Planning Commission. The planning commission is a resident advisory committee to the board of county commissioners on land use planning matters such as 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 comments are allowed on these topics for which a public hearing has not yet been held. We're going to start out with introductions here in the boardroom and we'll move online. We'll start coming here with you. I am Ivon Miller. I live and serve in district one.

Scott Nelson, District 4. Barry Halverson, Yale Washington, District 2. Commissioner Kaiser, are you online? Yes, I am. Sandy Kaiser, District Three. Commissioner Pestinger. Kevin Pinger, District 5. And I'm Eric Casino representing District 2. With that, has everybody had an opportunity to look over the agenda for this evening? And if so, I'd entertain a motion. Move approval. I second. Is there any discussion on the agenda? Any amendments we need to make? All those in favor accepting an agenda say I. I.

The agenda is accepted. Has everybody had an opportunity to look over the meeting minutes from our March 4th, 2026 meeting? And if so, I'd entertain a motion. Move to approve the minutes and accept the audio as the official recording. Seconded. It's been moved and second. Is there any discussion on the meeting minutes? All those in favor of approving the meeting minutes and accepting the audio of the official meeting record for our March 4th, 2026 uh meeting say I. I. I. Our meetings are our minutes are accepted.

With that, we're going to move into the uh um public communication portion of our meeting. Um we're we'll start here in the boardroom and uh you'll have three minutes if you tell us what part of the county who you are and what part of the county you're in. We'd appreciate it. And are we going to start with Miss White? Yes.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Christy White and I live in the Deli Valley of Christian County. I just wanted to reiterate what I had mentioned at the last planning commission meeting as we go through the chapters of the critical areas ordinance, that 10 10 item check off list that I left with with you. Um but as you look at the chapters as they come forth uh to remember you know to to look at the structure and content how it was and what has changed and so that you know what those differences are so that we're meeting the objectives for that. Including paragraphs in the very beginning that sort of outline for the user what this chapter is about and why it's important and how to use it. that it's in language that we can all understand uh for the lay person not only for a citizen individual but for developers as well. Also making sure that the best available science that we have available is is there for us to that's included in the chapter. Um incorporate our community input as we come and give it to you as well as what we're providing to the staff who are working very hard to take all of our notes in and there are a lot. um confirm that we've got climate projection information in there that's relevant and best available science and take a look at water quality. That's a really important thing. How does water play into all of the critical areas ordinance? And then net loss of habitat. want to make sure that we're not creating something worse than what we already have and that we've got language that's clear and not duplicative and that you look at how it relates to the other chapters, how they cross over and that the the chapters are are cohesive with each other. So, that was kind of the list and I can be happy to send that to you all again. Um, but really appreciate it. We're very excited um about how we're working with with the

staff. So, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Norton.

Hi. Um, my name is Betsy Norton. I live in Olympia and um I echo everything that Christie said and then I had a couple other comments. The only two pieces that I was able to look at, I looked a little bit at the Kara proposal and I also looked at the road the roads update. So, I just had a couple of comments on roadway construction. Um, I would ask you to ensure in the code that any effluent from construction, including washing water, is uh properly disposed of both by the contractor, the main people who work for the county and whoever you contract with. Um, I'd ask you to add to the road standards the need for any road that's over a stream or a wetland or near um near any kind of salmon habitat to add bio swells and look at ecologies best management practices to reduce six PPD and add that to the road standards. And then um third I would ask you to um in the road standards to try and design it so that you meet multimo priorities as well as driver priorities. A lot of times the roads are designed specifically for efficiency of vehicles and they need to be designed also for people and for bikes and for rolling people. Um, and I think if you don't if you don't put that in the design, it doesn't come out. Um, and I would just urge you not to do the multi- multi- um roundabout thing like the one they have in Jasper Road and Capitol Boulevard. Please don't do that again. Um, and I would say also for um for the uh for the CARAS, just in response, this sort of echoing what Christie said, please put climate change in there. I would expect to see all of the buffers increased. I

would expect to see, you know, um, all kinds of stuff put in there in terms of elevation and and redrawing maps and redrawing shorelines and taking into account the county as it will be in 50 years of after climate change because that's how long these these built structures are going to last and you need them to be in the right spot for what it's going to be as opposed to what it is. So, I think that's really that's really it. I have a few more comments and I'll just drop them off with the meeting. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anybody else in the order want to add to public comment? Okay, we'll move online to uh Miss Sepan.

Um hello Loretta. Can you hear me? We can. Thank you.

Oh, great. Okay. Um thank you. the uh Loretta Sep. I live in Olympia uh on the frequently flooded areas. I'm not going to make any comments tonight and I hope that you will allow for continued discussion next meeting. Those of us in the community didn't get the redline version until sometime on Monday morning. So, I haven't uh it'll I'll pipe up next time. Um critical aquifer recharge areas. My big request is a repeat. In the very first meeting, I talked about the choice that Snowomish County makes in their CAO and that was um to start with um purpose as our chapter does and then to have a process requirement section that comes right after that. And that puts the things that our county puts into chapter a different chapter chapter 24. So it's in the in the CAO chapter 2435. And that's the stuff that's in homish calls processes. It's about the reviews um that will occur in in the um that the things that are required that the applicant submit. And I ask that you ask staff to plan for simultaneous review of those chapter 2435 for the future wetlands and and do that before July 1st. do that when we do wetlands in April and do that when we um do the uh habitat in June I believe it

is and May I believe that is okay and I would ask also the staff to uh follow that Snomish model for this chapter right now to bring in the um rec the requirements for the hydro geological uh boy that's a hard word to say report and the damage and erosion control report and um mitigation and bring them into the next version of the critical aqua fur recharge area that we will see rather than waiting waiting waiting until July to even have a chance to see those particular topics. Okay. Um, there are a couple of one small thing in in the CARA on page seven, item C, I believe that's at the bottom of the page. The text says that staff can sometimes override the table, that use table, and disallow development that would have been allowed by the table in consultation with experts. and um they can do that when there's a risk to groundwater. I'm really happy that there's good eyes looking at groundwater and are going to protect it. But the wording implies that staff don't have to explain their rationale uh when they make this no-go decision. and and I'd ask you to ask staff to just justify in writing any uh any time when they're going to um do something contradictory to what's in the table about uses. And then in Carine Beach, I don't have time to talk about it, but there's not enough in in Carine Beach in the um geohhazard chapter uh on land the landslide chapter. It

needs to have information about Carline Beach that's just as much detailed as the Nquali Bluff information. And it needs to tell us whether you can or cannot have h new housing in Carine Beach, which I believe you can't. And it needs to tell us if that also applies to Hunter Point, which in some documents I read has the same um landslide capacity as Carine Beach and has had landslides. Thank you very much. Thank you. Is there anybody else online that would like to address planning commission or in the room? Okay. Well, we'll uh refer back to staff and see if they want to uh debrief any of our public communications from this evening.

Back to the front of the list. Um, so I think there are a couple I think important things to hit on the um I think we heard both this time and last time about uh Christy Miss White's checklist. Um, I think there there's some really really solid guidance in there and I think as we move forward I think it would be easier to talk about how things like climate and water quality and loss of habitat functions or values be easier to discuss that probably than to like have it written in or somehow like kind of peel it out of the of the code packages that we're writing because for example best available science is like this big body of things that we compile at the beginning of a process and it informs the work that we do. So we could we could speak to things that we've changed based on based on like emerging science um things like that. The um the climate information is going to it's going to vary from vary from critical area to critical area. That's going to be really kind of specific. But um I'm going to speak a little bit uh to Miss Norton's comment about uh about climate as well. I think the the protections that we're writing into the critical areas, those those should be those those should be deeply informed by the by future climate scenarios, best available science. We've incorporated that a lot into the into the work that we've already done. Um, so I I would say that the the work that we're doing does begin to address that maybe not as uh not as clearly and kind of upfront as I think people might want to see. I don't

think we like hang a lantern on it for example where we've where we're making a change based on that best available science. Um, I'm going to defer on roadway standards and not try and answer any questions for our uh, public works folks. And um, if if you think that you'd be fine talking about I took some notes or there might be some pieces you want to address in your presentation. I would be happy to respond somehow. Why don't you come have a seat so you can talk to us like let me come to the table. We want you to we want you to. Yeah. Um, please introduce yourself.

Yeah, my name is Matt Osman. I'm a Thirsten County engineer and it's Miss Norton, correct? Um, I actually think Miss Norton was spot on with all of her comments. Um, specifically in regards to the tire dust issue, that is a that technology is coming along really quickly right now. um mo and the only re the only way we've been able to treat that as part of our capital projects has been in using filters and the manufacturers of these filters aren't quite there yet. I've been told they're close. Um King County has been able to get there by blending a mix of soils together and putting it along their roadways. Um we haven't got to that point yet. We're looking for um some of those uh manufacturers of the filters to develop a filter that will specifically remove tire dust. Um so that's something we're really excited about. I mean we we're very proud of our fish um fish passage program and that kind of goes handinand with um addressing tire dust which has proven to be very detrimental to fish. Um, in regards to multimodal, um, Amen. Um, we follow, um, in the urban growth. Oh, sorry.

No, no, go ahead. No, go on. In the urban growth, we we follow the um the the applicable city, whether it's Lacy, whether it's Olympia, whether it's Tumb Water, and they all require bike lanes, they all require pedestrian lightings along the streets. Obviously in the county when you get on some of those like a bald hill road or a steamboat island road some of those 50 mph roads it becomes a bit more challenging to provide those multimodal facilities. Um but we do try to provide wider shoulders for bicyclists. You had something else and I don't remember. I should have written them down. I'm sorry. No more double roundabouts.

You can't blame us on that. While we do lots of roundabouts, we've recently just um we do we do prefer roundabouts um because we hate taking care of traffic signals to be honest with you. They're a serious maintenance pit. Um but we've recently installed roundabouts at Yel Meridian. We installed them at Marvin and 19th. We just finished a one at Johnson Point in Hawkbury. Um a devel developer is building one for us at Mullen and Marvin Road right now. Um so we do believe in roundabouts. I don't know if we'll ever get into the double roundabout business. Um I think you gota talk to I think that was I don't know if that was Tumb Water or Wash Dot. You gota talk to one of them about it. I think it's more than a double roundabout, isn't it? Isn't it?

There are three of them. Yeah, I think it's a triple roundabout. They just they mystify everybody who drives by everybody is just like so confused. They're about to build a pull out roundabout too where it's like a figure eight. Yeah. Where over by the state lab? Yeah. They're gonna very confusing. Yeah. I just for the multimodal I would just like to to say those are really hard for pedestrians. I don't know if you can put in the little flashing lights for the crosswalks

which we um any on any multi-lane roadway that's in the county's jurisdiction, you'll see those flashing lights. And then we'll try to put a refuge island in the middle too. So if, god forbid, the traffic's not stopping going the other direction, you have a safe place to stop and wait for a gap in traffic to walk into. Commissioner Miller, you Yeah. Is it possible, This is kind of a joke, but is it possible to put um directions on how to use roundabouts because there are a lot of people that don't know how to use Yeah.

And we like to think that people will follow the arrows, the big giant arrows that are painted on the pavement, but you're right. Um, so we don't see we don't usually have problems with a single lane roundabout. It's when you start adding multiple lanes and then yeah, I mean I I just don't think that like people around here are used to roundabouts yet. If you go over to Europe or some of the bigger cities, even in like Seattle or Bellingham, I think people are just used to them up there. And it's not just us that are going to roundabouts. the city of Lacy's going to more lacy or roundabouts, Olympia, Tom Water just because they're more efficient, they're safer, they're more efficient, you just get more throughput.

Did I get all your questions? All right. Yeah. And this is a little bit outside of what we're doing here with CAO, but when you are thinking about um some of the things that we should be thinking about,

where do you think we should be focusing our our efforts that will overlap with your efforts? Land use. Land use really drives the density because that really drives the amount of traffic that's going to be on our roads. And so we're we're always we're always using the Thirstston Regional Planning Council's model which is projecting those traffic volumes out in 2045. So that model is largely based upon all of the land use that you guys discuss. So all of a sudden, if you're going to have it in the Grand Mound area, for example, you expand a UG or um you create any sort of a more dense property, it's going to generate more traffic and that's we have to address that traffic or else we'll be up against concurrency, right? And then we won't be able to allow development to occur in that part of the county. And so we have to try to stay ahead of you guys, which um sometimes has ch you guys do a good job at challenging us, I'll be honest. All right. And this is a little bit outside of our pervy, but when you're talking about the new technologies for tackling the tire dust issue, and it's right now it's a a technology issue more than anything else, but will this turn into a funding issue at some point or do you guys

I think I think it'll get there in the next year or two. I really do. And I think um yeah, it's going to be expensive. anything any new technology is expensive and then after you pay for the research after five years it'll get cheaper like everything else but um we're going to be required to address it for the ecology manual whether we want to or not. So it's not really a funding issue we're going to have to do it.

Would that include retrofitting current systems and not just new development? The way we would attack it is um we would look at our NPDES areas and then we would develop some sort of a prioritized attack because obviously I don't know how many discharges we have but there's a lot. Um, and then obviously anytime we do a capital improvement project, we upgrade everything to current standards.

And we actually have a project that the Thirstston Regional Planning Council did to do a a full countywide all jurisdiction assessment of road retrofit priorities for storm water using a whole set of different criteria so that we're not doing something like spending a bunch of money on a voluntary retrofit of a place where it's not going to make a difference. So there are some really interesting high priority areas that have kind of popped out of that because for retrofits it's actually it's it's really tricky because you could either be opening nuisance habitat um or just not not retrofitting an area that actually made a difference for fish.

So many of our capital projects are bridge replacements projects too. So there's obviously a direct impact on the adjacent stream. So, um, we spend a good People don't realize a good portion of our projects is a funding wise is spent on storm water and it's just it's what it's a technology that's almost growing faster than anything out there. Yeah, the King County approach has been pretty interesting. They've been using the bio swells. actually have a project that's a pilot project in Ohhop Creek that's being led by the the Nisquali tribe and some other partners um that it's undergoing tape approval but it's basically just a filter box with sand. Yeah. And I wish you could say what all the biomedia was in it but

it's uh it's usually like a six like a 60/40 sand compost mix um sometimes amended with biochar. It's really simple, but there are actually some uh supply chain problems with getting enough good clean compost um to make bio retention soil media. Great. Does anybody else have any questions? Please. Is there a problem with replacing the filter material? Um not. We haven't done it yet, but

we haven't done it yet. Um um currently we have a I hate to use brands because it makes us sound like we're prefer one brand over another but the contact system we a lot of contractors elect to install those and we have not had a problem with the the filters. Um that being said we always make sure that we have a large supply in in case there is like a supply chain issue. I know that like the city of Tacoma was doing a bunch of work on breakthrough on like uh bio retention and swailes and they loaded them really hard and they were estimating like 30 to 50 year breakthrough. So

what's the hottest spot in the county right now for that stuff? Then we have a map for that for us public works. It's wherever we have a capital improvement project. Um, but that's where we need to be looking at like an overall like public works has their business needs, right? Planning has their business needs and we need to be looking for those those projects that are going to overlap and address multiple business needs as part of one project.

Yeah, the TRPC mapping project actually like it does some work to identify where you've got like high traffic and um like a level of connectivity to receiving waters. So, do you actually do you have like an outfall from a road system that moves directly to a receiving water or not? Um, bridges score really high on that criteria. How about the Mullen Road trestle underpass? I know. I will defer to my colleague. It's a very popular trestle. Yeah.

Which the county does not own, by the way. That is owned by the railroad. So, please don't call the county and ask us to raise the trestle because it's not ours. We've put up a lot of signs though on both sides of it and people there's no even with roaded stuff at this point, is there? No. Yeah. Commissioner Pessinger.

Thank you, Chair. Quick question and then a slightly longer one. Uh the first question about the tire dust and pollution and water runoff and everything. I I'm also excited to hear that technolog is coming that could improve that. I'm curious when you see a bunch of um in the cities you see uh road sweeping equipment like road vacuums and road sweepers. Is there any science about that helping with any of the dust, fire dust?

Absolutely. Um most of those are regenerative air sweepers that that do. So they actually they don't just sweep it up, they vacuum it up. And there is actually a lot of research on how that affects contaminant loading. Yeah. And we take all of our Does the county have any of those or those are just in the cities?

We do have pickup sweepers. And so just just so everybody knows, we have uh decant areas. Um one our biggest one being out at the war facility. So um all of our sweepings that get picked up we take out there and we put them in an isolated area so that material cannot escape into the environment and after some time now I don't know about tired dust but we've been allowed to reutilize that material but only after we provide don't ask me what the treatment is because I don't know after we treat the soils.

Thank you. Uh for my longer question, I'll start off with a comment. Um this is a compliment to the staff and I think to the planning commission overall. It seems like uh we keep improving things and it's much more of a collaborative process with staff and the planning commission and I certainly notice it and I feel feel very appreciative for it. So thank you. Um, I think things like even this particular section of having feedback on public comment, um, you know, I know it's very fairly unusual, but I think it's super valuable, especially in our context, and I really appreciate that it's happening. So, thank you for that as well.

Um, my question is about the process. I keep hearing public comments about a process that people want to make sure the public has enough advanced notice that they see the changes that are happening to chapters that are being rewritten that they see like explanatory like structure to why is this happening, what is going on, what are our requirements, all of that. Some some of these have been referred to as a checklist from Christy White and from others. Sometimes it's been referred to as other ways, but I'm always heartened when I hear from staff that they're implementing a bunch of these things, but I keep hearing public keep coming back asking for more. Um, are we are we still making progress at that? And do we still have quite a bit more to do or how far along are we? But I certainly agree. I would like to see us have a very clear process where we know for example we have x amount of time or x number of meetings when we get new stuff that we're reviewing before we're going to vote on it. So we have we have a time period to get comment from the public. We have a time period to get questions and answers for ourselves and research things more ourselves. and we then know when we should expect to to vote on which things. I would love more clarity about that.

Yeah. And I think uh one thing to note, so you will note that uh you might see that we are we're doing new things um based on some of this feedback. So we've got like markup copies. Um that was feedback that we got from folks. Um we also um Claire will have you already shared it or will be sharing your timeline. Oh

yeah. Um there will be um we we realize that because we're getting feedback both from the commission and the public on the chapters we're putting forth, there should be a designated time to come back and show how and where that feedback has influenced the code and give people kind of a chance to iterate on that as well. So um you'll see at the end of presentation tonight in addition to the schedule that we will be um planning out time to revisit code sections that we have talked about. So like geological hazards will come back again in April. After that we'll see floods again after we talk about it today and we'll see cars again after we talk about it today. Um so hopefully that helps with just that engagement piece. Yeah.

I think um the way this is going to work is we're going to make small approvals along the way for different sections. There's going to be decision points along the way. I think that if if those were lined out in the meeting material somewhere maybe on the agenda or something like that that we're expecting to make some sort of decision on a particular like if we're going to make decisions on the on the carriage chapter that that decision point is announced to everybody to expect that that could happen. Does that make any sense? I think the way that it's written now, we're weren't expecting any like um like end of the line recommendation decisions until we have the full public hearing draft and there's been a public hearing.

Yeah. Well, I I mean when you're preparing the public hearing draft like when we were doing the S&P or or even the um comp plan, you know, it's a big enough document that we would take it in chunks and we would then uh you know, give a thumbs up for a particular uh chapter of the comp plan and for the for the public hearing doc uh copy and I think that if we knew that because we'll have three or four meetings work sessions on like CARIS before we actually make a decision on what's going to go forward for the public hearing copy. Is that right? We're hoping that if not that won't be the case.

I just conversations the the idea behind the way it's set up and we this is subject to change if it's if it's not what you all are expecting. Um the idea with the way that the current schedule is set up is that we have a lot of time to talk and iterate essentially in advance. Um and that's also the intent of bringing the codes back again in the schedule um to continue that iteration process and then there is just a big public hearing draft and any final issues get worked out in that public hearing format but hopefully there aren't that many because we have done this process of talking through okay the drafts as they're written the whole time. Okay, that's how it's set up. I

Okay. And I think I think also if um I think kind of to Claire's point um if we do have big kind of decision points, I think we'd probably flag them on that. Like if something's kind of sticky, we'd probably flag them on the second time around because that's probably where all the kind of thoughts and feelings and um input would coalesce and then that like we would want to make a probably pull those out as decision points either before or after the public hearing draft and then the final recommendation to the board. Okay. And so

I I think it would be good for us to actually see when we're going to be making some decisions and what decision points are still needed to be made at some point or another. Yeah. Yeah. And I think

I think that'll be easiest to determine once we're at a point where most of the chapters have come back for their second round so that we know like say we bring back geological hazard areas in a couple of meetings and we've incorporated feedback and everyone's super happy with it which would be awesome obviously. Um, then we kind of like not even in the sense of formal decision, we just know that one's pretty ready for public hearing. And then if there's issues that come up along the way for public hearing or during the public comment for the public hearing, we can work that out after we normally would. But hopefully that's been addressed in advance. Fair enough.

All right. And then I think there were a couple. I don't think we've really hit on Miss Sepanin's comments. Um I just want to mention that the u there pluses and minuses to having separate kind of administrative procedures. Um so that's a 601 halfozen of another kind of a a project there. There reasons to do it both ways I would say. um specifically on some of the on page seven item C that nephean raised on the override um based on expert opinion. Um I think I I struggle to imagine a world where we wouldn't justify that in writing because if we didn't it would uh fall apart as soon as somebody challenged it. So, um I th that would be likely a full staff report kind of a thing um that we would we would likely do and we could probably specify that.

Would the appeal of an override go to a hearing examiner first? Do you think? Um I think so. I think that if that language I think that language could be made more clear easily and we can just take that as feedback for the next draft and and keep an eye out for similar things in other codes where if we're giving staff the opportunity to make a opinion that's discretionary. We should definitely have procedures for that. I think um in implementation staff discretion is tricky in general. We try to make things as straightforward and prescriptive as possible and we need good um guidelines for when discretion happens.

Yeah. And then lastly, um I don't have a good answer. Um but I think we could definitely consider those questions about Carly Beach and Hunter Point. Yeah. I'm in um Mark flagged that and that's our one of our uh geologists on staff. Um I think you guys have met him here. Um, and we're still in conversation with some of our our staff experts on those. Um, and making sure he he was the one who actually put forth the original recommendation to include more than just the Nquali Bluff in the special hazards overlay for geologically hazardous areas. So before that comes back again, I'll I'll flesh that out. All right. Any other questions for us before we move on?

No, I don't think so. So why don't we move on to new business work session number 11 on terrors in the uh frequently flooded areas for the chair. Is it possible um to have our past and our future commissioner from Barker? I asked him oh to come join us. You guys really want to So he wouldn't come up for me, but he'd come up for you. I'm prettier. No,

that's how it works, right? Thank you for joining us. Thank you. The deny twice then accept makes you an honorary honorary Midwesterner. By the way, I couldn't possibly. I appreciate the fact that you've been to most of our planning commission meetings even though you've been sidelined for the last I've been to all of them. I attended virtually. The one I wasn't here physically. I was touring a house today. That's the only reason I wasn't here as things started. It definitely shows dedication.

Okay. So, we're going to be talking about u two chapters of code today. We're going to be talking about crit critical aquifer recharge areas um which I will probably refer to as caras for the rest of the presentation because it's quite a mouthful uh first and then we'll talk about frequently flooded areas similar to when we looked at geologically hazardous areas. We're going to talk about the general goals and framework of the new code. Uh go do an overview of what has changed and then leave a little time for any remaining questions or discussion. Um, the goals are that it's easy to navigate in one place. This is going to be a goal for as many of them as we can achieve this goal for, which is hopefully all of them. Um, and having the designations tie to publicly accessible data so that when people pull up their map on our map systems of their property, they know what they're looking at. They can connect it clearly to the code. That's also going to be a goal for pretty much everything. Um, in general, a kind of a sub goal of this one, this also applies to a lot of critical areas, is making sure that the folks who operate our maps and use our data can use the most updated versions of that data without accidentally conflicting with the code. Um so a example right now is that u the USDA is updating their has come out with an update to their soils information and that soil information impacts a bunch of different GIS layers and information that we have and we want to make sure that the code doesn't hold us back from using new data that comes out like that. Um we're always trying to achieve that balance of flexibility and protection. make sure we don't overburden people with process um or requirements that don't really have a strong tie to strong environmental outcomes. Uh and then also ensuring environmental protection especially in this case for water quality. Um and related to that staying grounded in those outcomes. So trying to tie our requirements as directly as

possible to the direct impacts and outcomes of development. Similar to geologically hazardous areas, the designations and the standards are in one place. So, there's a little bit of extra um explanation of what counts as a critical aquifer recharge area, making sure that's clear and upfront. This one was already mostly structured that way, which was pretty nice. Um so, it didn't involve too much change, uh compared to some of the other chapters. Um and then, like I said, making sure the code can easily be implemented by our geodata folks. so easy to um reflect in our mapping and use the most updated data that we can. With that in mind, um we removed tables that won't be consistent um with some new data. Um so these are tables that um currently list soil types that might be categorized differently now in new data um and other types of features that might change over time in data. U this doesn't remove the requirement to classify critical aquifer recharge areas. It just makes the code a little less restrictive as far as being able to use essentially the best available science when it comes to designating them on maps. So instead we have the code point to the essentially the the fact that susceptibility exists and that where that susceptibility does exist according to the data sources that our geodata uses. It'll be shown on our maps. Um, another fairly significant change for CARS in particular, and this is something that will come up across um, the different critical areas, but it's the biggest deal I would say in CARS is allowing for aquafer storage and recovery or ASR and managed aquifer recharge products. It's M. Um, this is when essentially aquifers are refilled

manually on purpose, sometimes with reclaimed water and sometimes not. Um in the current code this was a relatively new especially with the use of reclaimed water was a relatively new um technology uh some of it and there was not enough information to make a choice at that time um and the department of ecology has put and the federal government have put out more information now um and ecology has a full permitting process for these projects um and so the code points to their process process and does allow um for essentially the manual refilling of aquifer recharge areas of aquifers underground uh subject to the requirements that ecology has. And uh for points left to discuss um the first one is um we're currently developing code for battery energy storage systems. Um these are essentially buildings that hold batteries that hold electricity. Um and it is a way to store electricity. It's fairly new technology. A lot of jurisdictions are grappling with um the risks and benefits and the process of regulating um BES. um best is a concern for critical aqua recharge areas um because of um essentially some of the materials and chemicals that can be in those batteries um and their risk of essentially being on fire. um that is the major risk associated with BES. Um and we are because we're currently developing those regulations, we were looking for input on whether or not we should just address best in this iteration of the CAO update or wait until the other development standards have come out. Um

so that's one question. Uh the next one is there are there any additional concerns about the use of reclaimed water to recharge aquifers um managed aquifer recharge aquifer storage and recovery projects? Um should we look at more local standards for those? Um as opposed to just relying on ecologies uh standards and permitting and then opening up to any other concerns or ideas that haven't been addressed so far. Mr. Hersonson.

Yeah. Um, Claire is the I don't know who wants to ask this question, but is the uh is the county uh hazardous waste facility going to get involved with best? I don't know. I have no idea. Um, in what way are you thinking? for displacement of batteries, old batteries and recycled batteries and that kind of stuff. It would seem that would be the place in the county that would be the best way to handle it other than creating a whole new organization. Uh I don't know what the countyy's thinking of when they talk about that

or how for that's a solid waste solid/hazardous waste question. I'm not sure it is a solid waste and hazardous waste question. That's why I'm asking if that's where this is going to dovtail into. Um, I'm my initial thought is the size and scale of best facilities probably outstrips the county's local capacity to manage the waste from them. Then the question becomes how is that going to be handled? the question. That's the question

and that's got to be in whatever we adopt, you know, how how are you going to manage it? Yeah, I think that would be more specific to the best code that's being developed rather than the critical areas because that the critical areas would speak to whether or not the best essentially can be cited in certain areas like whether or not you actually can or can't build it somewhere. Um, and then the the performance standards and management for how the facility is operated would fall under the more just standard development code. The bigger question is the state doesn't have a program for it.

Okay. Uh it's becoming a bigger and bigger issue. I mean even with NIKAD batteries and everything else for disposal,

you know, people are putting them in their trash cans instead of turning them into a recycle center and that's causing a problem for our waste management folks. Uh, so I just think, you know, if we're going to be looking at it and we need to, someone needs to take on the hard question and answer that question as to is the state going to take care of this? I doubt it or is each county with state assistance? Uh because otherwise what you're going to have is you're going to have facilities being built. these batteries, like any type of battery, is going to become non-functional and have to be taken to some type of disposal, and it's better than having someone dump it along the side of the road. Uh, which I find all the time out in the county rural area. Uh, people have just dumped hazardous material out in the county roads and I hunt those areas, so I've seen it. Mhm.

And there's also a question if we if we if it if it is something that outstrips our capacity as a county and it's not something that the state can deal is going to deal with, then are there partnerships beyond the county or with other counties that we can do to get to the economy of scale that does allow us to process this? Yeah. I know it's not really part of the land use section of it, but part of the building development section. Maybe on these best facilities, you can do something very similar to mines where they have to have a reclamation bond or something like that. And if you want to stack up a bunch of batteries like that, you have to have a plan and some funding in place to dismantle it at end of life. Yes. Like a reclamation plan and a

like a reclamation plant. But that would be a a that would go in the best code specifically if we're going to Yeah. requirement for that. I don't know if we can reference it in critical areas, but um something that we should at least consider in the uh development code, please. Oh, would that live essentially I'm looking at the table 24101 in the in the on page three of that document that you gave us and would that live in that list essentially where it's like it deals with very specific uh facilities and that would be a is it allowed in the

it' be a permitted not an allowed wouldn't be and right permitted like wi with the proper process can it be built in yes car one versus car 2 car 3 versus Wol head and yeah so the table is where this would live and then the following text we could also write additional standards as they apply to critical areas um like that references the table so that's where it would go um currently what would happen un like if it if the code is left as it is is that the best would staff would essentially have to interpret best as being one of the warehouse uses in that table

um and then it would just meet the standards of the the warehouse use in that table uses other other including but not limited to battery processing etc. for one of these that would probably be could you attach conditional use to it? Uh the CAO would not um require a a conditional use that would be in just the best development code. Okay. So you still have to do conditional use through development code as well.

Yes. Yeah. Most of these concerns are going to be the about the like how does it work? where does the waste go and and conditions under conditional use. I can call them special use. Um would be under the development code section that's not CAO. The CAO question is well really the question is do we want to wait before addressing a best in the CAO at all for that development code to be written or do we want to just go ahead and put it in now? Um and then from there how restrictive should the CIO be on best as a use? Well, if we don't put a if we don't put it as a permitted use now, then it would be an allowed use, wouldn't it?

No, it would be it would staff would likely interpret it as being one of the warehouse uses in that. So, that would be an allowed use. It would be a permitted use. It would follow the standards. So, there's that table in the code that has all the AX and P in it and it would be likely permitted and maybe excluded in some depending on intensity. I don't have it up in front of me. If it was if it is under the one that I was I was just looking at then it would uh not be allowed in the sort of first three categories and then be permitted after that. Yeah. I just want the floor to be permitted or excluded. Not the floor to be allowed. Yes, please.

The other question is do we have any of our urban areas Olympia, Tumbwater, Lacy that are tackling this problem and if so how? uh because it's obvious to me based on what we're doing as far as planning commission right now warehousing and stuff like that is going to be very limited in the uh rural area and probably even in the UG uh unless the cities want to do it. So I you know I think the UG is where most of these are going to show up possibly. I think so. I don't Well, I don't because they're going to have be under city restrictions, too.

Yeah, they don't care about that, though. The infrastructure would be better for them in Gas. And that's more concerning to me than anything. Well, Tom Waters is talking about wanting to make a like green development and like a a green industrial development corridor, right, where the plant used to be. Yeah. So, that's already an area that is messy. That is that would be a good use for it if we could partner with them. I mean, not that like we get to make this decision. I'm just using that as an example of like, you know, there there is work there work that could be done with the cities on this. It's already a hazardous area. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be interesting to find out if the cities are doing anything with this at all. Yeah, we can look at

Yeah, that's easy to research. Um, yeah, it sounds like for now bringing this back again, we'll put it in the table, we'll set the baseline is at least permitted. a agree generally that in the most sensitive ones it's good to have it be restricted. Um and then um also as we've mentioned we're hoping that this is the start of a critical areas ordinance that is touched more regularly than every 10 to 12 years. Um and so if the best code is adopted and there's something from that that conversation that comes up that would apply to critical areas, we can always go back in and um play with the standards or language as needed. My experience with that is usually the timeline doesn't shrink. Okay.

Yes. Right. Right. It doesn't. Right. We would love it to, but it just usually doesn't happen. All right. What's that? Do you have any more? Do we have any more questions on or do you have more presentation on cars? Uh that's it unless there's any more discussion on uh on here. Do we want to sub public works folks in for the moment? Yeah. Oh yeah, sure. So you all can

Yeah, we'd like to. We're going to change our um we're going to change this up a little bit and bring you up now instead of later so that way you don't have to sit all night and listen to us. Appreciate it. So, we're gonna we're going to jump we're going to come back to frequently flooded areas in a bit, but we're going to jump ahead to the public works section on road standards uh so we can hear from staff again and uh let them go on with their day. And that's very kind of you. I'm I'm sorry I didn't catch that earlier. Otherwise, we would have No worries. The agenda want to come down here.

I'm actually finding these This is my first planning commission meeting I've attended and pretty interesting. Good stuff. We're gonna ask you to come back more. Sure. That's great. All right. You got it, Sandy. Introduce something. I was just muting whatever. Who can fire up the Do they have a presentation for road standards? It's on our website. I can give me a moment. I can try to do that. Um, if you join from the planning commission agenda on the website, I believe if Andy's up at that computer, he can promote you to a panelist.

We have someone who is online. Uh, I thought um Corey was doing it, but I think Corey already left, didn't you? So, I can Yes, Andy, you should be able to once Matt logs in. Um, I was just gonna pull the It's on the planning commission website. So I could just Do you want to drive to do that too? Oh, okay. We'll see who gets there first. Yeah. It won't be me. Don't Oh, yeah. If you're logged in, then you're good to go.

Folks are chatting about they're working on that. um when we revisit uh the critical for there are two categories I'm interested in adding and those detailed lists and we've talked about it before but uh like detention centers and data centers since those are two issues that are coming up a lot and I've had some feedback from folks about that so I'd like us to discuss those while while we're waiting uh to pull this up if you guys wouldn't mind introducing yourselves for the public we'd appreciate it

yeah for Um, so again, my name is Matt Unsman, Thirst County Engineer, and I'm joined with Todd Mason. He's our development review manager, and then Becky Khan is our county traffic engineer. Um, thank you for allowing us to present our proposed update in regards to Thirsten County updates. Um, this code or these road standards haven't been updated since 2017. So, you you guys you guys were talking about um your your code. our codes don't get updated as frequently as they probably should as well. Um, I won't go into specifics because I don't want to steal Todd's thunder, but this meeting is really the beginning of two months of outreach for these updates. We plan on meeting with stakeholders such as Olympia Master Builders, uh, contractors, developers, engineers, and local agencies, just to name a few, or really anybody who's going to be affected by these road standards. Uh, this presentation is meant to be a very highlevel concise presentation. We could go into a lot more detail, but you wouldn't enjoy it. Um, but feel free to stop us, ask any questions. Um, we won't be offended. With that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Todd Mason to go and continue with our presentation.

And, uh, if you could go to the next slide, Andrew. So, uh, road standard. So you guys are probably familiar with it, but it is required by RCW uh part of the county road system and in governance. Um so the road standards historically have been basically the the standards from which developers uh end up building by. Um of course we want it to be in alignment with our capital projects too. And that's been kind of one of the efforts uh in our updates uh that are that are coming up having a little bit more alignment there. Um so my department's uh development review, we review all the private uh projects coming in and so we rely heavily on the road standards. Um as Matt said, 2017 was the last update. There was some minor revisions in 2018. Uh, and it's held pretty uh pretty good, but we're we're seeing more I mean, we're going through a new permitting system. Uh, so it's going to be online, and we need more of a presence online, too, with our road standards and a lot easier for the developers to go in, look at individual chapters, uh, be able to pull the standard notes, standard details, and all of that. Um also uh with RC uh or with the state with complete streets talking about multimodal transportation. So we're pulling that in recognizing that. Um one of the things and we'll get through you'll hit some we'll see some of the other changes in here. But like down in Grand Mound um their arterial road sections historically have had bike lanes. We're also putting those bike lanes in the lower categories with the collectors. Um so for that multimodal uh

next slide just uh kind of a quick overview of what does a road standard uh include and and so these are the different chapters. One thing that we've also done is we've reshaped kind of uh all the categories, all the chapters of the road standards because when we're looking at the existing ones, you take driveways, there's particulars about driveways in chapter 5 and in chapter six and in chapter 9 and so it's like, hey, let's uh let's get this all formatted. So, a lot of the major changes that you're going to see in the new road standards are are a lot of formatting stuff. Um but for overview uh there's introduction general conditions plan format road types geometrics as you can see on here um and the next slide and retaining walls bridges uh we don't have a lot of private developers doing bridges when it comes to projects. Uh usually critical areas will keep them away from that rightfully so. uh the bridge uh standards in here. What we see more of is with single family residents or or a private road where maybe they're crossing a small stream. But uh and a lot of times what we're really uh uh seeing with the bridges is when people need to update uh because there's instances where the emergency services goes out and goes, "Yeah, we're not going across that old railroad." uh uh you know car bridge anymore. So uh drainage was brought up. Uh drainage standards thankfully have been updated and we're actually starting a new uh drainage manual update now. And uh so that's happens like every probably like two to three years. Yes.

Does that fall under storm water as well? Do they reference each other and do they sync? Well, what we do in the road standards is heavily reference the drainage manual. Uh we'll have some details within our road standards when it comes to structures um for outfalls and such, but all the regulatory stuff on treatment standards, everything else, we're keeping in the storm water standards or storm water manual. Okay? So there'll be a direct link not only to storm water but also to the CAO when we talk about bridges and drainage areas referenced. Yes, there should be.

Okay. If there's not there will be, right? And uh utility section that's with uh utility companies most of the time just running cable down the shoulders of the road. And uh

that's where it gets really tough is with utilities is because you see all these little patches all over and it just nothing irritates me more than to do a brand new project and then 6 months later utility company comes in and says oh we want to open cut your pavement and it's like come on. I mean you got to do a little bit more foresight than that. You're going to have and that's where we have the ability to say hey you're not going to you're not going to trench our road. we're going to require you to bore underneath of it. I mean, if you're not Yeah, I I don't feel bad about it because we coordinate them all before the project and they have every ability to go ahead and move their utilities before we do our project. And yeah, so but that's where Todd can sometimes if a developer puts a trench right down the middle of a lane, rather than just back filling that trench, they have to repave that whole lane so we don't get a seam right in the tire path or something like that. Um, next slide. Summary of changes. So, uh, plan format. Um, we've had we have a little bit of, uh, some changes on that with the formatting with acceptance. Um, as belts are something that we're focusing a lot more and actually we've already started implementing and I'm going to turn over to Becky a little bit to talk on that. Put you on the spot a little bit. But um and Becky's traffic engineer and a lot of times they get information on our capital projects that they don't get on the private development projects and so you've spearheaded a lot of this.

Sure. So, um basically the intent of this is we have a whole asset management program at the county where we're trying to um we have all of our assets. We know what they are. We know when they went in so that we can plan for the future when they need maintenance or when they need to be replaced. So, we're trying to put some of that back on um the developer as they go through and they create those asbuilt plans and then they can give us that data in a form that we can then take in and put into our asset management program and save us time and also it's part of their process at the end of what they're doing anyways. So trying to um streamline that process and uh make sure we're not missing anything and then give us the best data so we can continue maintenance into the future.

I bet I imagine those aren't public facing but are those all integrated into GEOD data then you can see them all through there? Yeah. So we have an asset management program called Viewworks which Geodata does help manage that program but it is separate than the maps that Geodata has. Um but they very similar. Yeah, they cross connect though. They both Geod Data manages the View works um data for us and sometimes they'll take the layers and put them into Geod data. So there's um some crossover.

When you think about development when it goes in, you think about the number of pavement markings, the number of catch basins, the number of street lights, the number of whatever it is, and you compile all those lists together. It's it's a large amount of assets and it takes a lot of time. So this includes all your signs, road signs and everything. So we have 20,000 signs. So we have I don't know how many assets because we have multiple signs on some post, but that that's a huge list. Seen a lot more signs going in throughout the county on county roads and stuff that have uh looks like they're uh they have lights around them, particularly stop signs.

Yeah. Is that something you're doing as routine when you replace them that you're So those you the ones I can think of off the top of my head are Old Highway 99 and Tilly and then Mullen Meridian Bald Hills and Bald Hill. Yep. And the reason is is because those locations have very high um accident rates specifically where the collisions resulted in serious injury or even fatal. Okay. So that's where you're putting the those China changes in is those. We try to limit the amount just because you don't want to put too many or else they just become background noise to the traveling public plus they're expensive.

Well, that was my next question is how do you determine because you all talk about, you know, signs become a problem with too much uh when you got too many signs in an area they call it sign blind. Yep. So how do you is that in this uh document you're putting together on

So signs are a unique animal. They're governed by something called the manual of un the uniform how quickly I forget. I was a former traffic engineer manual of unified traffic control devices and it's a it's actually a federal document that the state has actually adopted that manual by law. So all of our sign placement and the amount of signs is really governed by state laws. We don't really have as much local decision making as we do with some of our other assets. Same with pavement markings, but we reference the manual in the road standards along with a lot of other design manuals that that

So it's by reference. So when the reference changes, you don't have to change automatically. So, we're not going to put the MUTCD version 10. So, like we have to update it for 11 and 12 when they come out.

And and speaking of referencing, even our asbuilt requirements, we're reference referencing outside of the document so we don't have to go back through the road standard process to update that um road uh types and geometrics. So, we're going to be encouraging more of the roadside planter strips for storm water. Um, allow one-way roads when needed. So, we don't have that currently in the standards, but you know, there's situations, uh, especially topographically that maybe it makes sense to have them separated and one one way road up here and the other way down below or something. and give it a little bit more flexibility on it so they're not just doing some mass grading and to put in that road section that's typically required.

Yeah. Um this seemed like the appropriate place for it. Uh you had mentioned uh protected bike areas before and I did just want to emphasize that like that is something that tends to be uh like used as a dense urban um situation. It's something that people usually think about in in like the downtowns. The areas that I have the greatest risk are not well-lit downtown areas where everyone's keeping their eye out for people darting in the road. The areas that I I get a lot of uh uh car interactions um are those like wider like those large long empty strips where people are cruising through and not paying attention to what's around them and there's no dedicated area for me to be that isn't a shoulder. Um, so that would be my feedback for that is that I would like some more protection in areas that are a little bit uh where I'm likelier to be run off the road and disappear.

Sure. I mean, just to make make sure I understand what you're saying. Like, so you're saying like on like a stretch of old highway 99 or Little Rock Road where it's not really downtown, but it's used by bicyclists. um why we may not have bike lanes. You're just saying, "Hey, as long as I have a wide enough shoulder to to utilize and wide enough reflective shoulder would be great." A wide enough shoulder and it's kept clean because a lot of the times is well there's a shoulder there, but there's gravel and glass and everything else all over it.

Exactly. My problem. Yeah. Um and then uh I am glad to see the roadside piner strips on here. Um I have noticed myself uh when I'm doing herping and birding that uh those little those little wetlands that we create um in these contexts where we're putting in where we we're putting in drainage actually are and maybe this is problematic in some context but they're actually very good uh corridor or they're very good like like like uh habitat they're microhabitat that is I've seen used by a lot of uh species of interest here. So, it's something that we've talked a lot about things that for that that have mult multiple uses and I would encourage uh planter strips that would be that would uh fill that function.

Yeah. Mr. Mason, I was just just as a thumbnail, how much of the work that do you do on plan review that is like how much of it is UG's and Grandmound versus fully rural do you think? Um, it's a good question. when it comes to the road standards then well probably I'm going to guess that 80 to 85% of our projects right now are in the UGS

um in the rural areas where our review comes in for the most part is uh like large lot subdivisions and you know we're seeing a lot of those here recently out Hills road and 5 acre lots. And so we'll review those for the applicable road sections there. Um in our rural areas for residential development um or anything. Uh typically doesn't trigger any kind of road frontage improvements and usually those happen during one of our capital projects like when it comes to widening shoulders. So, somebody was, you know, fully out in the middle of nowhere rural and they had a five or 20 acre lot they were going to build a single family home on and they needed to punch a driveway out to the street. Can they do that with just a simple driveway permit of some sort or are they going to have to come through you for something much more?

Um, no. For a number of years, uh, I don't know exactly when it started, but, uh, what they come in for is what we call an encroachment permit. it's a permit to work within the county right ofway. Um so if somebody has that and then uh well for instance we'll get calls of hey I just want to put access to my property. So how that process works is they come in and do an application with public works for that encroachment permit. We go out and look at it for spacing site distance make sure there isn't any safety concerns for the traveling public. But then it also gets routed to the planning department because we want to make sure that we're not having somebody put in a driveway approach that's going to point traffic right towards a critical area. Um so that's kind of two-part and but most of the time what we'll see is people coming in for a single family residential permit and then all the the entire sites reviewed by the planning department and the driveways part of our review looking also at storm water concerns and others. Is that encroachment permit tied to use specifically or is it generalized? Like if if it's just going to be a single family home, is that the same permit as if it's going to be a working farm that has 30 trucks a day pulling through it? So, we have uh three different categories on it. So, uh we'll have the single family, we'll have a shared basically a shared driveway or private road, and then we have a commercial industrial. And then it also depends on the type of road that it's connecting up to. Um, for the commercial industrial, we want to make sure we have tapers to get people off the road and also to be able to get back into traffic. Um, a minimum requirement is that they do asphalt or concrete 25 ft from our lane of travel into the site. Uh, that's really to protect the edge of the county road and, you know, not track gravel onto the road, too. So,

Commissioner Miller. Yeah. Um, I have a question for um road types and geometrics. Um, on the bottom it says trail crossing. Um, is there I know other countries um they have like crossing for wildlife. Has there been any kind of discussion for like wildlife crossing? Because there's a lot of like wildlife that get hit by cars and stuff like that. the state has started to do that and they're called wild I think they're called Becky we looked into it once with Trevan a long time ago I think they're called wildlife corridors

and like so the most popular one I can think of is you're going over Pass and you see the big tunnel that's a wildlife corridor on top of that um we haven't specifically dove into it that far um most of the time when we if we include a bridge we animals can go underneath. Obviously, we don't have like fences along our entire rideways to try to direct them. Um I I guess I my response would be we haven't really looked into it very very much yet. Not saying we shouldn't. Yeah.

Uh I was just going to to hop on to that. Uh, a lot of the issues that we deal with with uh with small wildlife out here are like with gophers for example are actually going under rather than over or amphibians. Um, and that's actually a lot lower of a barrier when it comes to when the kinds of retrofits that we're doing. Um, you're not having to like loop over basically just another tunnel um or another drainage area. But uh which I'm not just that's I know I know exactly how much uh of a pain in the butt that is but uh it might be something that is is uh able to be incorporated within that sort of

um Matt touched earlier on roundabout islands and uh the refuge for the pedestrians. Um, I'll just bring up sometimes people don't uh don't recognize, you know, we hear the, "Oh, I love roundabouts or I hate roundabouts." Um, as Matt mentioned with signalization, um, that really is a huge lift for the county and so usually we team up with the cities on that. But probably one of the great things to go say, hey, roundabouts are awesome, is accidents. And uh so the general public doesn't always recognize that when you have a signal as a signalized intersection or farway stop or whatever it might be. That's where you get the T-bone accidents. And so with the roundabouts, you're already getting people a little bit angle. They can still hit, but they're going to hit at an angle. And so it's a huge safety part, too.

Yeah. People look at them and are like, I have so many like near misses on here, and like I'm I'm really frustrated about that. and they're not realizing a lot of their near misses would have been hits in other contexts. Like they're paying more attention because it's inconvenient. I'm going to record that is on the record. Yeah. And uh and it talked about the concrete in the roundabout islands. Um so we're looking at uh you know some stamp concrete, other items. It's this blend between aesthetics and maintenance because of course county crews have to get out and maintain in the circles. So

and ADA because um if you're on a roundabout you'll see that we'll have the stamp concrete around the perimeter and that's so if a blind person is walking around the roundabout and they're using their cane they can tell the difference in the texture between the stamp concrete and the sidewalk and that's how they know how to stay on there. A lot of people don't realize that.

And uh next slide. Okay. So, uh traffic analysis requirements. Uh again, back to the roundabouts as a preferred option. I'm going to let Becky speak a little bit more and just kind of give you guys a little bit of a high level on the TAS, our traffic uh impact analysis, and when these developments come in, kind of what they're looking at and and what that entails.

Sure. So if a if a development coming in has a certain number of houses, I believe it's 50 or more um houses, they are required to do a traffic impact analysis, which basically they determine based on their use. So single family versus um commercial has different um projections in terms of how much traffic they're going to create and put out onto the system. And so they're required to look at how many trips they're going to have and then where those trips are going to travel on our system. And we we work with they we have them work with Thirstston Regional Planning Council, TRPC, and they have a regional model that helps them predict where that traffic is going to go on the system and then if they're um impacting how many trips they're sending through certain intersections and then whether that amount of trips causes an issue with um the level of service. So um are people now required to wait more than before? and it's and it's putting them into a failing level of service and then they'll have to um pay mitigation fees to help us bring that intersection up to a passing level of service. Um so

so that's exactly what you were talking about earlier when you were talking about where where's that overlap between planning and our road standards that land use is driving that trip generation rate. So if you zone it to be commercial, obviously we're going to have to build out our roads a lot more in that particular part of the county and look at more of an arterial type of a of a roadway rather than a collector because you're generating so many trips and like larger trucks and larger trucks. Yeah. Um please. Oh, I'm sorry. You have are you in charge of the traffic counters? I do. my team does.

Okay. What are those costs to put them out there? Are you saying to like deploy one for a number of days to do a test? Um I mean it would really just be staff time, not like a huge cost. Okay. More like resources and how many resources we have. It would be more based on like how many how many tests we need to run and when we can fit it into our schedule. Because I see them periodically all over the place. Yeah. I'm assuming that the county is deploying them or on state roads. the state is. Yeah. And sometimes, I mean, if we have like a if a developer's coming through, they'll hire someone to do the counts for them for the traffic impact analysis. So, it could be a variety. But you do almost more than 100 counts a year, I think.

Right. And we also hire we hire a consultant to come in and do a certain number because we're required through state um law that we for roads that are a certain number of trips per or per day, it's 5,000 trips or more per day that we have to update those every two years to keep track of um how much how how it's growing. People don't realize like um with the gas tax we receive a lot that a lot of that is driven by the classification of the roadway and how much truck traffic is on that roadway. And so Becky's team is responsible for I think you're on the routine cycle for most of the roadways now of like reviewing what those traffic volumes are. Make sure the classifications appropriate and then what the level of the of the trucker out they call them T1, T2, all the way up to T5 based upon the percentage of trucks that are on those roads. And that all that goes into um the amount of gas tax we receive each year. And I mean, we received $5 million in gas tax, which that's a quarter of our county.

So, we're financially incentivized to have the most up-to-date J. Yes, very much so. Commissioner Bartlett, no, I was just

I do have a follow on question then. U the reason I'm asking that question specifically is when Fish and Wildlife upgraded the boat launch both off of Carpenter Road for Long Lake and off of Pleasant Beach Road for Lake Lawrence, they spent a $1.5 million on an upgrade at each of those locations. And the traffic to those locations increased substantially. I get comments and complaints from our people that live on Pleasant Beach Road all the time. There's no sidewalk. It's a very narrow road. There's not a lot of on the side. I was just wondering when was the last time you did a traffic count on that road. I would have to I would have to look up.

Local roads tend to be not as frequent just because there's lower volume and not as um high pleasant carpenter. Pleasant beach road. Pleasant beach. Yeah, we can Yeah, we we have people call us up all the time that are concerned about speeding or concerned about other things and that usually triggers us. Our first trigger is normally we go out and do a study and see what's happening out there. Right. And they can get those give us a lot of data. It's a deadend road too. Exactly. So it's probably not super high on ours, but it would like when people treat that's how we get people let us know and that's when we go out and take a look. Okay. Thank you. So you just let us know.

Just another fun fact on that when they do the traffic counts is the speed studies because we'll get calls at our department. We refer them down to Becky because they're going, "Hey, the speed limit on our road, you know, either they think it's too high or too low." And uh so that's part of the studies that they'll do there. And we can do targeted enforcement. So if you got some jerk that's doing 80 miles an hour every night at 8:05, you we can get hold of our roads deputy. Well, our county sheriff lives out there, so he takes care of that. Lucky getting a little bit out of out of our here, but

Well, no. And I want to actually continue it a little bit if you don't mind us beating up on you on tangentious stuff, but a couple of cycles ago when we were doing CIP stuff, we got some new funding for some new roundabouts that actually came through this board and they were the well two of them were in Thirstston County and one of them was just on the other side of the river on 510. And it always perplexed me why we were doing all those roundabouts but not the one at St. Clair Cutoff 510 and Old Pacific Highway. that feels like the most dangerous intersection in the county. And I don't know if that's on your list of capital improvements, but I'm glad you brought that up because um we've done multiple roundabouts for the state.

Um the one you're talking about I think you're talking about the one we're doing at Veil and 507 right now. No, I'm talking about by the old watershed or the artisian wells right down there where you come through Nquali. Um, oh, Pacific. Old Pacific and those are both our roads. Yeah. So, we do have a roundabout planned right there. Oh, you do? You're talking about Old Pacific and Coleman. No, I was talking about St. It's That's a state intersection. It's at 510 and Old Pacific. Oh, the other end. Yeah. Yeah, I got you. Um, cuz I know Coleman's on your list. Coleman is on, but you're just doing a pull out for that, not a roundabout, right? That's roundabout. Oh, a full roundabout there. Yeah,

that's wasting a roundabout. It needs to go down. It's interesting. Uh, we do quite a few roundabouts for the state. We did the one at US12 and Sergeant down at Grand Mound. We're doing one at Veil and 507 right now. Um, we got them the funding for YM Highway and 510. And then what was the other one right there? There's another one right there next to casino somewhere that we got. Yeah. And that honestly that's where I'm not going to say it on camera. Well, if it's not fully your responsibility, maybe I'll just whine to the skate that I think it's that'll be a state intersection. And I have not heard them talk about that one. But you're right. That is a bad intersection.

A couple more up in that area that they've been talking about because of that stop sign. You'll see traffic backed up a quarter to a third of a mile in the 5:00 hour there, which is a long ways. You can wait at that light or at that stop sign for 15 minutes to get through. And Becky, the intelligent transportation systems. Um, so this refers to our um like flashing beacons is what I like to call them. So what we were talking about earlier at um at roundabouts for the pedestrians when they can push the button and the and the beacons start to flash. That's one form of an IT unit. Um I don't actually school zones school zones.

Sure. Um but just the requirements of where those go in and what exactly um we utilize in the county.

And uh the next one, the clear zones. We're trying to make it more clear what the clear zones are. And so typically that's 10 feet off of the travel way if there's not a curb gutter section. And one of the challenges we face in public works is people putting part objects within the clear zones. And so we need to have a safe area where if there is an errant vehicle going off the off the asphalt that they don't come to abrupt stop with large boulders is what people like to put in. Or you know we also watch out for the mailboxes that uh you know people think oh let's put a big old steel mailbox in there to keep it from getting hit. Well, that's not really good for u cars or motorcyclist. So,

or bikes. Or bikes. Yes. Um, another thing that we added that we've had some issues with on our uh private roads that connect into the public roads is garbage day. And so, suddenly you end up, and you probably appreciate it as a cyclist, you ride along and all of a sudden here's all these garbage cans and you you have to go out into traffic to get around. And we have it also happen at the end of culde-sac. So now it's saying, "Okay, developers, um, figure out an area, set aside where the trucks can pick up that garbage and not interfere with the with the traffic. That's clever.

Um, yeah, we've had a few years to take notes as the calls come in. So, let's put that in there. uh bridges that's just basically updating the design criteria which has uh changed in the last 10 years. Um construction control and inspection. Um we were already in the process of substantially increasing our construction control and inspection processes on our private developments. um putting it a lot more in alignment or pretty much direct alignment with our capital projects because uh the developers build the roads, we have to end up maintaining them into perpetuity when they become public roads and uh so they haven't always had the same amount of testing for materials and as our capital projects and like there's there's no sense to that. So, and we haven't really had, you know, much uh push back at all from the contractors on it. It's kind of expected. Um, and also, as you brought up earlier, when it comes to areas for wash out and and such for during the construction, uh, paying a lot more attention to that, we cover that in our, uh, preconstruction meetings now. And it used to be real informal construction meetings out on the sites. Now they come in here and we sit down, we go over the plans, people from all the departments. It's very structured of what we're going to cover. So we're seeing some improvements there too which are covered in the standards. Um right now it's we're starting the outreach of uh of the standards and uh and then it'll be public hearing. Oh, you already you already beat me to it. Thank you. And uh and then the public hearing uh around June is what we'll be looking at. So be hoping to

have a little bit uh more interaction with you guys. Again, tonight was just kind of hey, here's where we're at on this process and kind of the large overview, but um I'm sure there'll be questions come up as and the drafts are happening. The draft update is available up on our website. Um, we're sending out postcards with links to our website to just trying to build that stakeholder list and get it out there to as many people as we can. Do you get pretty good um response for your public outreach? You get a lot of people interested outside of the the building community like just interested citizens and not so much industry folks.

Uh, we do get citizen on like our capital projects for sure. Um, and it it really depends on the project. Um, in our more UG areas, we tend to get a lot more comment just because there's more drivers that are impacted. But yeah, we do get pretty good feedback. Merson. Yeah, I was going to recommend that we put a link to that on the planning commission website. We'll take you up on that.

Any questions? That's a dangerous thing to just look at this group. Well, we really appreciate you guys coming in. I really we really enjoyed the conversation. So hopefully we can overlap a little bit more in the future because I'm not sure exactly how we can be useful in informing any decisions you have to make. But just an awareness I think is is just help us with our messaging and we can help you with your messaging. So yeah. Any other questions for please?

Just to uh go back to something that uh Commissioner Miller brought up um and that I was talking about too with the with like you know wildlife crossings and things like that when we're talking about these when you're talking about bridges when you're talking about these other kinds of like drainage systems that you're putting in. that might be a good area to double up where you can um where you're already planning on making some like putting in some expensive infrastructure like that little bit extra to make it something that is crossable for wildlife uh or passable through would be a lot easier than trying to make it entirely separate. Yeah. So you're like talking about if you put a bridge over a creek, take it back a little bit so you have a little bit more bank for animals to extra sense.

I have a question on animals. So, I've read a book. It's called I think it's called Crossing America. It's about um wildlife crossings. Um but holding out on this I was just curious. A lot of that book talked about like migration patterns of certain species and those kind of things. Do you have any recommendations for for groups in this region that would know those types of things about certain So, if we had a certain road we were going to be putting in knowing if it would need a crossing or not for a certain species. Yes. I don't have the contact information right on me, but I have three names that just popped through my head. So, yeah, be interesting to

One thing I did skip over was the trail crossing that was in that same section. So, of course, we maintain the trail, Western Trail, and we don't have any details currently for traffic crossings of of those. And so, that's where that's getting added in. Uh we're also recognizing we we pushed back um up here by uh on Slater Kenny of doing a traffic crossing that we ended up just putting the ballards in from a development to just let cars and pedestrians because in our view it was like we're going to have too many intersections of cars competing with bicycles and users of the trail system.

Yeah. And uh so we're we're watching those spacings because we always have the opportunity in the future if need be that ballards can be pulled and traffic can go through. But it's kind of that finding that balance because the trail system doesn't work so well for bicycle commuters if they're stopping every few hundred yards. Yeah. So I got one last one for you and you might not be able to answer this one, but when you're looking at growth projections, you're probably using the same data that we see that's comes to CPAD that's probably coming from TRPC or something like the 2045 model,

but a lot not a lot of times every now and then you'll find that what that data shows and what you see in the field there's a little bit of a disconnect. And so there's probably some growth challenges that are not reflected in that data. Where are you seeing those growth challenges? Grand Mound or any any area that's like developing super rapidly where it's just Lacy Urban Grow that south side of Lacy or the Marvin Mullen area is getting a lot of development but not so much on the north end of Lacy.

Yeah. I know that in this body we've heard um a lot of people talking about how um it really needed to punch all the way through to YM Highway and it's too late to do that now, but Oh, no. No. We've Are you going to see if you could do something like that? Yes. In fact, the recent subdivision Manor House that's south of Mullen. So, they had to set aside right away to make that connection in the future. Um

at Tobacco Lane or something like that. It's uh it it well it's it jogs a little bit to the east from where for a direct alignment down and so we're always looking where's that connection going to be down to YM highway and it kind of is dictated too by developers coming along because but yeah that's anytime they come in we're like okay where's where's Marvin Road going to be you know extended through here to get down to Y highway we we have a couple different routes that can happen. So, we really need to think about how we do zoning in that area right now. Um, I think it's already zoned.

Yeah, I I guess that could come into play because most that's already outside of the UG. So, that's all low density zoning down there still. The UG actually goes all the way down to Y. Does it connect to Y? It stopped at 58. It goes all um because uh the corner is at Yel Meridian, right? So any of them that come and talk about it. But yeah, they've already set a title on the right. That's Yeah, we almost have it to 58. It's 58 DM highway. That is the next. Super cool. Change your name tag to Eric Geodata Casino.

Thanks again for coming. Really glad that you showed up. Thank you. We're going to return to an earlier item on our agenda for the frequently flooded area update code review. And I think we're bringing player back for that one, aren't we? Thank you, Andrew.

Thanks again, folks. Thank you. Um before I get to Commissioner Bartlett, you mentioned a couple of things. Um is there any additional time you wanted to discuss? Um

um honestly, given the the the time, something I'm happy to come back to. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll start at least start by looking into it. So next time it comes back, there will be something there like I put the note in the documents. Perfect. Thank you. Okay, let's get to um frequently flooded areas.

Okay, just like we just did, we'll run through the goals and framework, overview of the changes, and any remaining questions and discussion. The goals, some of these will probably look familiar, easy to navigate in one place, balance of flexibility and protection. uh with floods. Additionally, we are complying with external standards that come from places like FEMA, the National Flood Insurance Program, and that community rating system. If you were at the meeting um before this, you heard uh some conversation about that. Um the community rating system is the discount on flood insurance. The NFIP allows people to participate in those flood insurance requirements uh that are required for things like federal mortgages. Uh and FEMA makes all of or most of the flood maps that we use and uh has requirements for how floods are managed. Um we try and keep all the requirements that we put people through grounded in positive environmental and safety outcomes and as always reflect the best available data and science. Again, we're trying to keep most of the designations and standards in one place so that it's easy for people to read through the chapter of the code and understand uh what they're going to have to comply with. Um, additionally, we need to make sure that our code complies with the federal requirements that includes flood insurance CRS. Uh, we're trying to make sure we maintain that high CRS score. Um, we also need to comply um and stay aligned with another chapter of our own code. That chapter is outside of the scope of the CAO update, but chapter 1438 um has the actual standards for constructing in uh special flood hazard areas. Um so again, if you were at the presentation before the meeting, you saw the little diagram of the home being raised up on stilts above the water. It deals with that kind of thing. Um so it's very much about the actual structures. Um and again, we're trying to balance protection and flexibility without compromising safety, especially in this case.

Some of the major changes to the code for this one um including include um creating more flexibility for high groundwater hazard areas. These are still subject to requirements of 1438. He mentioned that code citation pretty frequently when I'm mentioning that it means there are additional construction standards that folks have to comply with for their safety um and so that they do not worsen flood hazard areas and push them off on their neighbors. Um, it also establishes a clearer review distance for high groundwater hazards. So, when we talked about geohhazards areas, we had that conversation about, well, how close is somebody before they have to start getting a permit? We've established that. Um, for high groundwater hazard areas, it's based both on distance away horizontally and distance above vertically. Um, we've removed outdated map references and requirements. there were some references to maps that either didn't exist or no longer exist or are called something different now and that is part of that broader effort to include our geodata folks early in the review and make sure that we're handing them a code that they can implement with the data and the maps and the tools that they have. Um and then um we're looking to um allow a lot more flexibility in the flood of record with the use of notice on title. We also talked about that a little bit with geologically hazardous areas uh with things like laar hazards or liquefaction where um just making sure that the next folks to come along to the property understand the risk um but not um placing too much of an administrative burden on permitting for those areas. So I know um this is one in particular where non-conforming structures are important to consider. um the non-conforming section of the code um will be part of um the the broader permit process in general

standards. Um an important thing to note for flood areas in particular is that 1438 also deals with non-conforming structures and so we need to maintain that consistency there. Um, and then just in the questions more generally, we've made some changes to the dials as far as protection and fle flexibility. Um, trying to create flexibility without sacrificing protection. Um, and this discussion is a good place to make sure those dials have been tuned appropriately. Um, and then any other concerns or ideas Does anybody have anything for Claire on this particular piece?

Um, I know I just brought two in. So, there's that. But also when we're talking about I noticed cemeteries are in a couple different spots in your cemeteries and funeral facilities and and like cremation is is there's an exception like you know like funeral facilities except for cremation but it crematories are never mentioned again so I don't know what's going on with that. Um but I know that death uh air uh is something that is uh kind of evolving pretty rapidly right now. Um, and we're moving a lot more towards like this area specifically. There's a lot more like human composting facilities and things like that that are coming up. I know that's like a big like that and uh natural burials uh are kind of like two areas that there isn't really any like specificity on and it seems to me that those would be those would have a different pollution risk and a different a different effect on the aquifer than a traditional cemetery. It might be something worth separating out. Just a thought I had. Yeah. Um that is yeah we can look at that for the use tables. I can see um that defin I think the intent especially if I'm thinking of flood hazard areas and critical aquifer recharge areas like the cemeteries are fairly unique um as far as the um especially the chemicals used for inbalming and things like that leeching and then flood you really don't want water in cemeteries doesn't go good but there's other that's we can think about that

well and like one of the big the big dangers I've seen with flooding in cemeteries is you know people coming back uh as as Yeah. And that is something that is not as much of a concern in this context where there isn't something to rise again.

I mean, it's horrible. It's really traumatic, but I live right next to a cemetery, so it's something I think about. Yeah. Zombification risks, hydrostatic forces. Well, I know I still have a lot of concerns about the frequently flooded area portion of this, but I think most of my concerns I expressed last time. And so, I'm not going to beat you up on anything today, especially since we're going to come back to it again later and I know that a lot of those things are being thought about.

Yeah. for a lot of like we did have a a good informative conversation about that and the reason that I put the bullet point on the here is that to to put a reminder that we're still thinking about that um and that like I'm looking forward to working on the non-conforming to because I think across the board actually the non-conforming code is just a sensitive piece of code because a lot of the time when someone is what regardless of the type of critical area needing to interact with that code it is because something bad has happened to their home. Um, and so it is a really like we'll be looking for a lot of input on tuning that dial of helping state people stay in their homes and also not perpetuating unsafe situations unnecessarily. And so like yeah, there will be

with nothing being more unsafe than being houseless. Um, here's the schedule that we talked about earlier. Um, I've added a note to clarify that permit processes feat that's that's called permit processes on here. Um, but that also includes a lot of other general standards. Um, and then there's also an additional column on here since last time and that lets us know when we'll be looking at code that's coming back for the second time. So, the first time we'll do that. um is in May. Uh we'll look at geohhazards and then cars after that, frequently flooded areas after that, and then we added on a meeting in July to bring back the ones that are coming closer to the end.

Any questions about the schedule? No. Andrew, did you have anything for us? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Well, I guess that leaves us uh with staff updates. Um I will start with a question that Commissioner Pessinger had from last time which was the kind of the relative I think he was looking for more specifics but um I talked to our um our geotech um and about geotechnical reviews when we were talking about how it would change in the number of reviews um that the county would need to do for geotech. Um I talked to uh talked to Mark Beaver who does those on our team and um he corroborated the input that I gave you all as well which was you know his his time is somewhere between like three maybe six of those a week um that he's reviewing and his assessment was qualitative not quantitative and he did say that it would be a substantial reduction in the number that he would review and it wasn't his uh his opinion that that present an undue safety risk, for example. So,

Oh, so it's a good idea. Um, I think Mark would love to have that time back. Well, we'd love to resource him somewhere else.

I I I think he he may be wasted on that project. He's very capable. Um, another thing I, um, I would be remiss if I did not state this, at least for the record, our one and only Brian Benjamin, um, who is our, uh, he's our natural resources program manager. Um, he'd be very disappointed if I didn't mention this in public again, um, that he was, uh, he was selected as an emerging leader for a national award from the water now alliance. So he uh that is something that he would be very disappointed if we didn't mention in public. Congratulations. Let's have that on the record.

He's actually very humble. I I joke um he would be very embarrassed to know that it has been mentioned again. He was recognized in the boardroom this morning by the county manager and commissioners. Uh but this is a big deal. Um this is uh this is on the back of the of the water resources program that we run here on streamflow um at the county. He does an exceptional job. Um and uh I think this this award does reflect that. Couple other things. Um Thirstston County was selected as the municipal honore for the Thirsten Green Business Award. So we beat the cities which is not usually.

Of course you did. U that that that is another uh laurel that the county has picked up recently. Um and then uh on May 6th there's going to be a short course on local planning. Um the city of Tumwater is hosting it. We'll send information around. Um this is the department of commerce puts on this uh this workshop on local planning. It's a short course. It's kind of the um the baseline everything you need to know about local planning that the Department of Commerce does. Um it's valuable for planners. It's valuable for the planning commission. Um we'll go ahead and share that. Um share that with you all. Um if we have five or more people who want to go, um that would be a quorum and we'll want to notice it. So um we'll need to get uh feedback on folks on whether or not they want to join that short course. I would highly suggest it. Um it's a really really good resource. So, it's not going to be on Zoom.

Um, there is a Zoom option, but given that we can hold our meetings remotely, I think we'd still probably hit our Well, not it's not a big deal. So, yes.

So, we'll send out information on that. Um, it'd be great to get a response. So, we might even just want to assume that we're going to notice it. So, that was it for my staff updates. Do we have anything else for Mandy or Claire that we want to Well, let's look at our calendars. I believe our next meeting is April 1st and uh uh I know I'm not going to be here and Commissioner Kaiser will be running the meeting, but is there anybody else that's not expected to be here April 1st? Not as yet.

And then after that, April 15th. Do we have any expected absences from April 15? All right. We have anything for the good of the order? I got one thing. Um, on the 28th and April 4th, we'll be doing our calf annual calf tours at the farm. Oh, 10 to one for anybody that's interested, right? Uh, see those dates again? March 28th, April 4th. So, Saturdays. Yes. What What time are you guys doing those? From 10 to 2.

10 to 1. 10 to 1.

Does anybody else have anything for the good of the order? All right. Well, having no further business, this meeting is adjourned. Oh, as a reward for y'all for showing up in person, I do have coffee for folks. So, welcome back, Daniel. Oh, next month. Yeah, feel free to grab one. It only took eight months. That's all right. And yeah.