Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

There you go. That would help. Uh, could we have our uh, commissioners online introduce themselves? Uh, Commissioner Fishburn.

I see Commissioner Fishburn. Uh, District 4. Great. Commissioner Bartlett. I'm Commissioner Bartlett. I'm district I'm live in Tacoma or Tom Water and I represent district 5 and commissioner passenger.

Well, we know he's there. We we've seen him, I believe. So, Commissioner Passenger, whenever you want to introduce yourself, raise your hand again. There he is. I'm here. This is the first time I've heard you. Oh, great. That was my fault. Sorry. Great to have you. Thanks. Okay. I would entertain a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. Okay, we'll proceed. Um I'd like to get a motion to approve the meeting minutes. vote on agenda.

Oh, we do have to vote. All those in favor of the agenda, I proceed approval of the meeting minutes. Is there a motion? Motion to approve the meeting minutes and accept the audio as official meeting record for February 18th, 2026. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. All those in favor? I I I.

So approved. We'll now proceed to item three on the agenda, public communications. Uh just to go over the basic guidelines, the commission welcomes comments from the public at all meetings. Please introduce yourself, including your address. Please address the planning commission. The planning commission may not respond to public comments. You're limited to total of three minutes. Of course, you'll see those minutes ticking away on the screen. Um you cannot donate your time. We we appreciate that you not make any comments that are commercial in nature, lwd or offensive, inflammatory, hateful, defamatory or discriminatory. And um it would be best to remark on projects that have already had a planning commission public hearing. Those will be forwarded actually those comments would be forwarded to the board of county commissioners for their consideration. So we'll start here in the boardroom and I'd like to invite John Pettit.

Good evening planning commission. My name is John Pettit. Uh I decided to come here because one of my favorite topics to deal with is spring areas and particularly wetlands have a high impact. uh I understand that uh there's some consideration about the uh mapping system that may be available and uh the first thing I want to mention to you is is that uh much of the difficulties which I have uh in working with the county has to do with the mapping system. Unfortunately uh the mapping system geod data is uh has a lot of errors to it. Um, and it it has a really nice disclaimer. I've colored it up some, but clearly the instructions uh kind of using it, one would say, uh, Thirsty County and its officials and employees assume no responsibility or legal liability for the accuracy, completeness, reliability, timeliness, usefulness of any information on the site. Okay, that being said, it would be inappropriate if if the population shouldn't be using this mapping system. It would be inappropriate to be thinking that you could have staff or county staff integrate and use the system. It's it's a it's a contradiction in terms. Uh, one of the issues I've come across before has to do with the wetlands the the layer for the geodata system and uh because I got involved with it I followed it up went to thirsten county regional planning who was the one who helped create that particular and u I'll leave this piece of paper here but one of the things that needs to be noted on

it is they had a a uh finding that there is a high level of false positives related to identification of wetlands in the mapping system. Now the last thing I do because I have 50 seconds is I will provide you with uh a number of sheets which we have uh four different parcels that I identified I know about and I provided a combination of one is the actual uh national wetland inventory map and and a geod data map just as an example and you can look from a distance if you that you'll need up close probably is these are the two comparable for the same site. You'll notice a large amount of blue. That's county map. We'll notice this one over here. It has a small amount of green. That's the national wetland inventory map. So what happens is is that many times people doing development projects are having to fight the fact that they have bad information according to this system itself that are being evaluated. And so I highly recommend suggesting a better map. But remember, one last thing I'll leave you with is that anything that you're getting information from looking at a map or at a monitor, it's strictly strictly an indicator of a possible presence. It is not a fact.

Thank you. Thank you. I'll just leave these right here, especially when I have to go put my ducks away. Have a nice evening. Get your ducks in order, John. I do. I think Okay, we'll proceed to Phyllis Frell.

Uh, good evening, commissioners. Phyllis Frell. I live in the Sunwood Lakes neighborhood in unincorporated 13 county and I wasn't planning on speaking, but I was inspired to after listening to the presentation of uh uh about wetlands earlier and I try to follow a few of the issues that you all do. a few of them and I can't keep up. And so I just really wanted to commend you for the hard work that you do, the service that you are providing for our community. Uh I'm uh in uh gratitude here for the work that you're doing. So thank you.

Misty, would you like to Christy White?

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Christy White and I live in the Deli Valley. I just wanted to comment uh on our our critical areas ordinance today. I sent uh a memo to uh the planning staff earlier today and they were kind enough to do an immediate response. Thank you, Claire, Derek, for that. Um, one of the key things in your in your memo that was sent to you by the staff was looking at the protection strategies and looking at options one, two, and three. And as a cursory review of that, I would encourage you to embrace option one as your first choice. Um, and and not option three because option one gives the most detailed uh evaluation of a critical areas and uh wetlands, what they are, what they are not. And I'm hopeful as we look at Thirstston County, which has a a significant amount of wetlands, maybe not an accurate maps as we just heard, but we do know that they're there. You can just look out your door and see them. So, I think it's important to protect those. The other thing I wanted to mention was about the calendar for the critical areas ordinance. Um, as Phyllis said earlier, I can barely keep up with the one thing I'm tracking with you guys right now. And it's a really tight calendar to to do all of this. You know, we just sent a rocket heading towards the moon today. Took a lot of prep to do it right. So, I'm hopeful that you can look at the critical areas ordinance calendar and maybe, you know, push it out a little bit later into August, September so that we can get through this detail of the ordinance and do it well so that we don't have to revisit it or have or mitigate problems um that could occur by maybe rushing it. So, um, those are some of the key things and I hope you'll take

a look at what I sent that came all to you, uh, this afternoon. That's all I have for this evening. Thank you. Thank you. There anyone else in the room that would like to address the commission? I want to acknowledge our uh, other commissioners just joined us, Ivon Miller. Welcome. Thank you. Okay. So, we'll cons we'll go now to folks online if we've got folks that would who would like to um to they would like to speak tonight. I see we've got two hands. The first one was a a 310 area code number. Kevin.

Oh, that's Kevin. Okay. Somehow he's in the attendees instead of the panelists, but we I see Loretta Zeppin. Uh would you like to speak, Loretta?

Hello. Yes. Loretta Sepan, Olympia, Washington. Uh, two quick items. One is about wetlands subject tonight. I ask you at your next meeting to consider uh how best to uh protect wetlands for their uh critical factor in terms of the health of water. Water being cool and clean for salmon. I'm calling this to your attention because the growth management's hearing board just recently agreed with uh a uh an appeal that um residents of Snowomish County put in where they were um doing too little to protect a repairarian forest. Uh and so um about a half dozen groups including the League of Women Voters up in Snowomish County said the critical area ordinance that they just approved up there um had develop allowed for development to be too close to the repairarian forest. So, I presume that means that the buffers weren't wide enough and uh and that as a result could end up making um the habitat for shinook salmon in their case to be um poorer. And actually um the um county the hearings board said yes, the appeal is correct and you need to change it. And Snowomage County decided okay, they were going to change it. So, I suggest it'd be great if our staff could uh help us with uh pulling out the decision points from that hearing and how they relate to a wetland code here in Thirstston County before we move ahead before we move off of this particular topic. Then my second

topic just takes us right back to last time, frequently flooded areas. And I don't know if you remember, page three of the frequently flooded area code had two figures on it, uh, two diagrams. Normally, a diagram, a picture would be worth a thousand words. In this case, I think it would take more than a thousand words for me to even understand what any one of those figures was trying to tell us about high groundwater flood hazard areas and when development can be uh allowed and when it's completely restricted. I suggest that for that very confusing section of that chapter that um uh staff uh turn over to some communication staff communication experts on their staff which I believe they have to consider how to handle that and maybe not have diagrams at all. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else online who would like to uh speak tonight? Going once. Going twice. Okay, that ends our public comment for this evening. So, we will proceed to Barley showed up on the thing, right? I did I did ignore he he was here to introduce himself. Yeah, he Yeah, we'll proceed to uh public communication debrief, which has actually been a great tool. wouldn't like to any specific question.

Yeah. Anybody have anything? Okay. Well, then we'll proceed to item five, new business, work session 12. Over to you, Claire. Right. I think Can you follow me? Yeah, sorry. I thought I did. Might take a sec.

Thanks. All right. So, yeah, today we are taking it back. Um, I know we've done code the last couple of times. We're going back to one of our like bigger concepts conversations. So, we're just going to be kind of like getting some background knowledge on wetlands, looking at some details from guidance and best available science. um rather than code which we've been on for a little while. Um so yeah it's wetlands today. Uh the outline of the presentation generally we'll look kind of introduce wetlands and look at the wack definition for them talk about their functions and values how they relate to climate change. Um I imagine a bulk of our uh discussion is going to be on protection strategies. It's pretty significant for wetlands. Um and then we'll have time for discussion about all of that. So this is the wack definition. Wetlands have a long one and um it's a kind of unique definition. It's very specific about what is and also is not a wetland. Um so there are some stipulations in here about artificial wetland wetlands um that essentially get created by human activity kind of incidentally rather than intentionally. So, if someone makes a wetland as part of their mitigation process, that's a man-made wetland, that counts. But if a wetland occurs um in a canal, detention facility, wastewater treatment, farm, pond, etc., those generally aren't considered wetlands under state definitions for critical areas ordinances. But generally, they're areas that are inundated, saturated by water or groundwater. So whether it's coming from rain, river, groundwater,

lake, um even um coastal and estuary wetlands, um this it it means there's frequently water on the land in that spot essentially in a way that uh supports unique vegetation um and has a usually special kinds of saturated soil. So hydric soils. Commissioner Bartlett has a question for you. Yes. Um, so I have been reading some interesting stuff about canals and their use for conservation in Florida. Um, and I'm wondering if there are other areas where artificially constructed wetlands are considered for their specific uh habitat preferences or habitat uh function. Um, yeah. or is that is it just under wetlands?

Um, it it would just be under wetlands unless it was something that was part of a like specific conservation project. Uh, and that's kind of the the designation in this state definition where like if it's created as part of mitigation or restoration, then it is falling under the critical areas ordinance wetlands. And if it's not, then it's essentially not a regulated area under this definition. as far as the CA goes. Um,

so if it's if it's not created for that purpose, but it is functionally used by the uh species of concern in question for that purpose, there isn't really a mechanism for adding that into protected land.

Uh, that would be a good question. Um, I know in a couple meetings we'll have our staff that work on the HCP. I don't know the exact details, but I know is that sometimes there are areas in this case, I think specifically especially for the spotted frog that might be spotted frog habitat because there's water present that might not meet the definition for wetlands, but the HCP functions pretty differently than the CAO. So HCP is not necessarily doing things like establishing buffers. It's more about mitigation. Okay. So wetlands have a lot of different types of functions and values in the landscape. They're related to a lot of other critical areas. They support other elements of the landscape. They support a lot of animals. They relate to water quality and quantity. Um so for water quality and quantity, they sort of help water um accumulate and distribute slowly, especially when there's a lot of rainfall or flood event. wetlands have the ability to sort of soak up all that extra water like a sponge and then let it drain out slowly or even infiltrate into groundwater. Um, this helps floods cause less erosion. Uh, it helps them damage less property, especially if those wetlands are protected and people don't have their property inside of them and the flood water can just go there and do its thing naturally. U, that's a way better solution than engineered solutions for flooding or or having people in those areas. um coastal wetlands which occur more on the actual like if you think about how Washington is set up coast of the ocean. What we have here are more estuarine wetlands because Puet Sound is like a big estuary. Uh but they do protect against storm surges and sea level rise. Estuine uh can also help fulfill some of those functions especially as water levels in Puget Sound are changing. Um they help water infiltrate into aquifers because water moves very slowly and kind of pools up and sits around in wetlands.

has time to get into the wa into the groundwater. Um, and the soil and vegetation in wetlands are really good at filtering out nutrients, chemicals, pollutants. Um, when we say nutrients here, that word sounds like something that's good for the environment because lots of living things need nutrients. U, but it's really important that those be in balance. So, um, for example, when people use fertilizer, that's really nutrientdense. Um, and when too much fertilizer gets into water systems, it causes something called utrification, which is where those systems get kind of clogged up and choked out. They lose a lot of their dissolved oxygen. It's bad for fish habitat. Uh, and you get things more like more algae blooms or overgrowth of microbes and plants. Um, so if you've ever seen like a really kind of mucky pond or stream that's like all full of like that kind of organic stuff, that might be a stream that's suffering from utrification or it might just be that kind of stream. I'm a little concerned that we cannot see the other commissioners that are attending. We can see Colin, but we cannot see Commissioner Passenger nor Commissioner Fishburn. Um,

Commissioner Passenger's on the phone. Yeah, but he should we should be able to see him. It might be a setting there because I have Can you see them? I have Commissioner Fishburn's image and Commissioner Pessingers's phone number on my Okay. Yeah, for some reason we can't see them on screen, but it might just be a setting of this. Can you hear me, right? Camera. Yes, we can hear you. And you can hear me, right? Concerned if you have a question or you you guys would like to participate more. I've got it up on mine. So, okay. We'll see you then. Yeah, thanks for looking out. Been on the other end before.

Uh, wetlands also have important functions and values for habitat. They provide habitat for mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, pretty much any kind of animal you can think of. Also, plants and microbes uh at a lot of different life stages. So, for some animals, they might live there as adults. Some of them, they raise their young there. Some of them it's just breeding or a combination of all those things. Um I think to quote a statistic from the presentation we had before the meeting um wetlands serve as habitat in some way for onethird of all the endangered and threatened species uh in the US. Uh which I think is really cool fact. Um they support unique plant species that and in turn those species support the all the functions of the wetlands whether that's habitat or water quality. U there are specific types of plants that are adapted to live in these wet environments and need that that wetland environment to live. Um wetlands also frequently support the organ spotted frog which is an HCP species. I touched on HCP a little bit before. Um it's something that functions separately from the CAO, but obviously in the environ the environment doesn't know what kinds of regulations we have. So um those frogs are still protected by our wetland protections just kind of inherently because they're there. Although when we are looking for them specifically in the environment in a regulatory framework um the C the HCP uh takes precedent over the CAO and that's how they're managed. Doesn't mean that wetland doesn't get protected as a wetland for all its values. just means that if there's also spotted frog habitat, that piece is managed under the HCP and that's the habitat conservation plan. Be better about my acronyms.

Uh wetlands are interesting in terms of climate change because they're both sensitive to and protect us from the impacts of climate change. Um, so it's kind of like a a feedback loop where if if climate change is worsening, the wetlands are worse at protecting against it, which also means that things are getting worse and they're less functional and less protective. Um, they protect against flooding uh, and erosion from sea level rise as I talked about a little bit before and decrease the intensity of flood events and the dangerousness and the speed and all of that of flood events. Um they help generate cool, clean water uh for streams and rivers and for habitat. Again, filtering out that water, slowing it down, um storing up rainfall to then release back to um aquatic habitats. Uh they also act as really effective carbon syncs. So for carbon sequestration, they help reduce greenhouse gases. the plant systems in wetlands and actually the soil itself uh is effective at essentially getting carbon out of the atmosphere and locking it down in the ground. Um and a call back to several months ago, we talked about the um tree canopy report. We talked about uh kind of diversifying how we sequester carbon. So forests are particularly susceptible to wildfire, uh, which then takes all that carbon back out of the forest and puts it back in the air again. But when we have landscapes like wetlands and prairies and even the ocean can do it, um, sequestering carbon, uh, that then we're more resilient. We're kind of diversifying our sequestration portfolio by protecting these elements of the landscape. Um, wetlands are sensitive to changes in pH. PH is one of those things that especially once you get down to the microbiota kind of level of how the wetland is functioning and the soil and the water type and quality is pretty

sensitive. So if the water gets too acidic or too basic from pollution that can cause problems um other harmful chemicals getting into wetlands. So again, I talked a little bit about like fertilizers, uh, runoff with pollutants in it or point source pollution, which is like when one specific thing is just sort of outputting a pollution into the environment. Uh, all of that can impact because the wetland is sort of made of all these different aspects, the animals, the microbes, the plants, the soil, the water itself, all those things can be impacted uh by that. They're also sensitive to precipitation and ch temperature changes, particularly in the dry season. It's a wetland. It wants to be wet most of the time. Some of them are seasonal and that's normal for them. Other types of wetlands don't really want to be seasonal, but they might become seasonal. Um, and that might impact the types of species they support or how they um affect hydraology. So um wetland buffers are generally the best way to keep wetlands protected. Um the code will also speak to wetland mitigation which is something there's also a lot of guidance for but in mitigation sequencing avoidance is number one. Uh the department of ecology has essentially compiled a couple different options for how buffers are calculated based on their rating system. So the ecology puts out a couple different pieces of guidance that all kind of come together to form how we think about it in the CAO. They have the rating system which is the actual sort of like homework that the biologist does when they go look at a site to see what kind of wetland this is. What is it doing in the environment? Uh what are its habitat values? How is it affecting water quality? How good is it at all of these things? If it's really good at all that we really want to protect it. if it's not doing as much, maybe it doesn't need as large of a buffer. And so that rating system is basically how you

understand what's going on in a wetland. And then once that's been done, um you have to figure out how based on that information, how you know what the buffer is. Um and so this is the guidance that ecology has. Um they give three options. Um, option one is the most sightsp specific and they really are called option one, two, and three. Um, there is no pneummonic. I was racking my brain all day to think of like a little rhyme or something I could put together to help differentiate. Um, I really the order is number one is their favorite. I think um option one is the most specific and the most flexible. So, it relates most specifically to the site that you're looking at. Um, but it's also more complex to understand or implement. So, uh, we might have people with more questions at the front counter if we're using option one. Option two is kind of an in the middle, which is where it is in the order, one, two, and three. So, you can remember it that way, I guess. Um, it balances the kind of ease of implementation and simplicity with some flexibility and specificity. Um, and then option three is super rigid. It's very simple tables to implement. um but it doesn't really reflect as much what's going on on the site. So we'll go in a little more in depth to each of them. So option one is ecologyy's preferred option. Uh it's the most sight specific. It's flexible which makes it a little more complicated. Um it requires a little more staff discretion um or at least biologist discretion. um it emphasizes habitat scores and then also looks at the wetland category. Uh and those are two of the pieces of information that you get when you use the wetland rating system. So those are two of the little scores that come out at the end when the biologist goes and looks at the wetland on site. Habitat

functions require the most protection out of everything. There was a great graph that I wish I had in this presentation uh in Heather's presentation before this that kind of showed like here's the buffer to protect water quality, here's the buffer to protect the plants, and then here's the buffer to protect the animal habitat. Yeah. Yeah. Like 200 feet for turtles.

Yes. Which we're we're not ever going to have a 3200 buffer probably. Um although it'd be interesting to see the growth management hearing board opinion on that. Um um so because habitat requires the most protections, it's a nice way to essentially just rely on that to be the major feature that determines what the buffer is because then it encapsulates all of the other functions within it basically. So there's an emphasis on that which means that also the buffer is pretty specifically tailored to that wetland because that habitat score is a culmination of so many different functions in it. Um it doesn't necessarily look at as much as the at the proposed use. It assumes that the surrounding land uses are high impact um or that the proposed use is is essentially something that's going to have a lot of impact. One of the things that they suggest as an option is if there's concerns about overregulating low impact uses like passive recreation or something um that you write in u different prescriptions for some certain low impact uses if it's of concern. So that's always an option if there's a concern about overregulating there. Um the nice thing about option one is that buffer widths are a little bit more flexible when there's impact minimization measures. Um it also allows for buffer buffer averaging and these like really on the ground what these are doing is a incentivizing people to use impact minimization measures because then they get more buildable space on their property for that. Um and it's been a those measures are designed that that's not a sacrifice to no net loss of ecological function that it's okay. Um, and then the buffer averaging is kind of similar where it's like, okay, well, there's extra buffer over here, but less over here, or you, you know, um, allows people to play around and work with the

site a little bit more when they're proposing something and keeps them out of some of those, um, hoops that are challenging while still keeping the bars high. Buffer option two is more in the middle ground, so it's a little bit simpler. it's easier to utilize and implement and understand right up front. Uh the tables are a little bit there's there's less grid going on in the table. Um it mostly looks at the type so the category of wetland according to the rating system and then the use that's being proposed. So this one is more use specific. Um it's looking at the intensity of impacts um rather than solely focusing on the wetland and just assuming kind of a moderate to high impact like the first option does. um it doesn't include any provisions for buffer averaging or reduction. So the buffer you've got is the buffer you get under option two. Um and it has the benefit though of some of those buffers are more dependent on the intensity of the use proposed. Buffer option three is the simplest and it is pretty much not flexible at all. It just looks at the wetland category, what type of wetland this is, and has to give that each type of wetland a buffer high enough to essentially include all the possible impact types and habitat scores to that wetland. Um, so it's a big simple buffer basically. Um, there's a lot less discretion, there's a lot um less sort of administration around it because it's so straightforward. There's no buffer reduction, no averaging. Um, and ecology recommends this one primarily for jurisdictions with very limited staff or very few wetlands. So, I'm sure there's some eastern Washington counties using this one.

Where would you put the category of our permit section? Oh, as far as uh staff capacity, higher than option three, I would say. Um, I mean, there are counties that have a planner, so we have more than that. Commissioner Bartlett has a question, too. Go ahead, Colin. Thank you. Uh, can you can you explain buffer averaging? Um, that was an phrase that interested me.

Uh, it is essentially what it sounds like where the the distance of a buffer the it's hard to explain. the location of the buffer can essentially be um altered based on can you we're seeing Claire move I'm I'm like I'm building a little wetland in my um so let me see if I can I can get this right and you can correct me if I'm wrong. So on a site you might be able to have a smaller buffer in one spot if you have a larger buffer in another spot but the average of the buffer meets your buffer standards.

Yes, I I believe that is how it works. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I like couldn't get my head around like it's the average. Yeah. So it essentially is something that allows you to scooch around different areas of your buffer within reason and and with the guidance of and and review from a wetland biologist. So, it's not just like I'm going to take this whole big chunk off. Um, but it's it's essentially compensating with more buffer in one place while reducing it in another place. That good,

I guess. Does that work? Like I mean if if the buffers exist for a certain distance presumably for a a specific reason does like and the wetland is a contiguous liquid habitat um does that mean that effects are on the less buffer areas end up uh spreading out? I'm just it's new to me.

So the averaging is conducted still with ecologies guidance which is supported by bass and it needs to be looked at by biologists. So there is there are some safeguards against like essentially violating no net loss. Um and I would say like regulatory buffers and the actual way that wetlands connect to the environment aren't necessarily exactly the same thing. Obviously there's much more of a gradient around that wetland. Certain uses are going to only really certain functions and values are really only happening within like 10 to 30 feet of a wetland. And some of them, like we were talking about with the habitat and animals, those animals are going 3,000 feet away from that wetland, but it's still benefiting them. So, I think that level of gradient and flexibility being taken into consideration by the review team and experts uh is is what allows for that basically.

Any other questions? That satisfies my curiosity. Thank you. Okay.

All right. Okay, so we're to discussion. Obviously, the big question is um you know, we're looking to make a choice about which of these options to use. Um it's okay if we don't decide that right now because one of these questions is also how much time should we plan for to talk about this at the next meeting. Um and I'm happy to help answer any questions that can help inform that choice. We can keep talking about it. Um and then uh obviously any other major concerns or questions or issues that come up when you think of wetlands. Um and then anything that you're curious about. This is kind of wetland related and also more general. Um we have a presentation planned upcoming to talk about the habitat conservation plan and the shoreline master program and how they do and don't interact with the CAO, how they're different, how they overlap. Um if there's any questions about that because it can get kind of complicated um that we can plan ahead for um for a couple sessions from now um we're happy to to hear that um and plan but yeah

I guess my question would be has there been any analysis done by the permit section on how much cost and hours would be required for each of these different options? uh we don't have that. Um yeah, I don't have specific numbers. Generally the complexity tends to decrease across them. Um but as far as the specific differences and a lot of that complexity too is is more so about like the level of detail and reporting as well. Again, like getting those habitat scores versus like option three is all we need to know. And you're assuming that the habitat score will be done by a field biologist that would be paid for by the

landowner, the applicant. U and and that's another question is okay. So, we want the maximum possible protection uh with the least impact on cost to the homeowner because the the impact on homeowners or people doing any building is going to drive up the cost.

It's going to drive people out of the market. We're going to have fewer homes developed. U and I mean that's just a reality. And same with permitting section when there's more cost involved they charge basically by the hour that they uh take for the project. So what what are based on the different options what are the approximate uh cost for filing a permit in that based on that option?

Yeah. And again, I can't speak to specific numbers. Um, I think some of this, regardless of the option chosen, like regardless of the option chosen, people with wetlands on their property are going to be hiring biologists. Um, and there's going to be like all those biologists are using the same wetland rating forms and system regardless of the option. Um and then another thing I would say something we can look at and other jurisdictions have examples of this are things like that are more um project and use based in the permit process. So things like minor wetland reports or um single family housing affidavit. Um so there are jurisdictions that um more in the process side and less in the actual buffer calculation side um simplify the wetlands process uh for certain projects. Um, and this would be a similar model to what we talked about particularly with the geohhazards area where there were different levels of reporting based on what the needs of that individual site were and what the person's goal for the project is. Um, so we could look at um what other jurisdictions are doing um or other examples to see like where we do have room to remove some of that permitting burden without actually impacting um the protections.

The permit section is going to use the geo data database and the wetlands overview map to determine if there's a wetland on a property. And then they're going to require that if the geodata map says there's a wetland on the property, they're going to require a biologist's review of the stuff. Even though we just heard from one of our speakers tonight that there is a large high number of false positives based on the geo data mapping mapping and the code requires that the director of CPED uh send out a staff member to verify whether there's wetlands on the property or not before they go into that. But we also know that that's not being done. It's I would say with staff resources borderline impossible. It's definitely something that needs to be addressed in the code. Um to speak to kind of how the geo data functions um we compile a couple of different sources only one of them being the national wetlands inventory uh to screen essentially for what would be considered a potential wetland. And that's what the site verification and essentially what we do now is that instead of having county staff go they have you you hire somebody

which is a huge cost to the homeowner when they're coming in and saying I don't have any wetlands on my property. So one thing that we can look into which is very similar to what we proposed for the geohhazards is if a wetland biologist comes out and they are easily able to see there's no wetland present then that is a short one to twopage letter explaining why they believe that is the case that our staff receives and you move on. Um, that's what that's what we've talked about for geohhazards as well because we see the same problem where somebody has a blip of 40% slopes on their site, but it turns out that slope is actually quite safe and stable and the geologist is able to verify that.

My point is that the county code requires that the director of CPID send a staff person out to verify if there's wetlands on the property if the homeowner says, "I don't have any." And that precludes the homeowner from having to hire a biologist to do anything to include a one and a half page letter. I mean, that's part of what's currently in the code for the county. The county So, there's a preface to that statement that says generally. So, there's there's some wiggle there's some wiggle space in there, but the problem is that they're not doing it at all. the so and I think that's something we can talk about and talk about what a what a good system and process would be

but it is going to be hard because that is still like if we were to do it that way that's still staff resources that at some point it's going to be applicants paying for so but a whole lot less than hiring a biologist to do a study I'm just saying we need more time in general wetland discussion at the next meeting opposing that, you know, this is a discussion item. It's important to the homeowners that are trying to build with the cost going up and up and up. It's important to the conservationists and the environmentalists that are trying to protect the animals. So, it's it's for both sides. Absolutely.

Okay. And when we have a county code that says this is generally or not supposed to be done and we know for a fact that it is never done, okay, then there's a disconnect between the code and the policy. Yeah. And I think what it is reflecting is that the the code policy is difficult to impossible to implement as written. Which brings us to where we are right now and putting it on the homeowner to hire somebody to show the county, I don't have any wetlands on my property at a huge cost of home.

Yeah. And this is a pretty common construction for regulations is to have like a really high bar that you could jump over. So essentially, you know, you've got some balance between option three and option one. And there's a, you know, there, if you think it's a really clear-cut case, you just use the the easy system if it's going to be tricky or if you want to demonstrate, there's usually there's a lot of places there's this demonstrative path. Yeah.

But it does like require that the applicant's going to demonstrate. It's a really common like regulatory construction, but usually there's a balance. Like you can take the the easy route, it's going to be maybe big buffers and uh kind of lower resolution. Um or you can really dial in and that's going to be harder. But finding a balance where you could possibly do one or the other or I think as Claire was pointing out there are there are ways to make the administrative like the the way that people experience the code easier and different. So and I think we we do really want to talk about we look to you for guidance

need to talk about it. Well, and I'm wondering if the code does it specify who and county staff. It specifies the director. It's the director of the and the director can uh basically assign someone to do that with experience in that field. Qualified qualified individual on the staff. Okay. That's what the code says. And I would say we probably interpret it as though we could designate that to a private party. Yeah. I was going to say cuz if you're going to need biologists anyways, right, to determine whether or not it's a wetland and it is

sometimes not super obvious if you do have a wetland, right? Like it could be seasonal. Um, you know, but you still have to be protective. It may be just something that the county would like to hire out. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and I think the likely scenario and what's tricky about this piece of current code um is that basically with the we have a staff biologist that's qualified in wetlands as far as I'm aware um and this is work that essentially we would need to contract out and then do cost recovery on. though there's still likely a cost to homeowners and it's either that cost is coming through us to either pay our own staff or a consultant to do that site visit or that person can just work directly with someone they want to hire to bring to their own property and they get more choices about how that functions. Um, yeah.

Yeah. And I' I'd go out on a limb and say if I think I don't have a wetland, I'm going to bet money it's cheaper to hire a wetland biologist to come out and look at it and say you don't have a wetland than it is to have staff come out and do it because staff is going to come out and be like, well, even if they don't know, they're going to say you have a wetland and then you're gonna have to go hire the biologist anyways. And as we know from previous discussions, sometimes the staff will say, "Well, we don't look at that individual's report as being valid, so we're going to do it again or we're going to request it to be done by someone else." We've known that and that's on the department to take care of that. Yeah. But

and I know they won't do it. I'm not saying they will. I'm just saying that's

that's way too far into the weeds for us. the process for what happens when essentially the department under any critical area. It's common wetlands happens in other ones as well determines that a report that someone has paid for isn't sufficient. Um that's it's a very sensitive process again because we are dealing like people are investing their time and money into their properties. Um and so that'll be a key issue to to think about when we get to permit processes. Um, and I think that's one where uh getting to third-party review is better than that kind of protracted back and forth. Um, and and we can talk about um directions and options for how that gets handled with the general permit processes because that's one that happens with a lot of different critical areas.

Yeah. And if we put stand like clearer standards in some of those administrative procedures for some of those reports, I think we touched on this with the geohhazards. So we have that kind of like risk gradient and if you're in this risk category, you need this like report that's this big and they get bigger and bigger as you go on. But that those kinds of clarifying like tell people exactly what kind of rock they should expect to bring to the permit counter. Um like the more that we can do that, I think we all understand that as everybody wins in that situation, it's better for everyone.

Yeah. And I think um something I'm leaning towards, especially based on some of the public comment feedback that we've gotten, is bringing those special report standards into the chapter that they apply to so that when you read through all those wetland requirements and you get to the bottom, they're in that same place so you don't have to go looking for it somewhere else are specifically what we're looking for and the standards that we would hold people to. Another huge one I think for that specific issue is actually already in the code fixes um that passed a couple of months ago um we have a definition for qualified professional which is really helpful um and that again so when someone goes out to hire someone they can show them this is what this county needs you to be to submit this permit do you have these qualifications they know that upfront they're going to avoid that down the line

I had a question about the wetlands overview map. Where does this original source information come from for that map? I know one of them is the National Wetlands Inventory. Um I believe ecology has a wetlands inventory. Um I don't know all the sources off the top of my head. Um one thing about the maps, I know one of them is hydric soil data. So NRCS um which is part of uh federal agriculture

um puts out soil data that essentially tells you where certain types of soil are. Some of the soils are classified as hydric, meaning they have a tendency to have water in them. That's one of the things that gets used. Um, all of that consideration, we have kind of a parallel project to the CIO update happening, trying to improve and simplify that map viewer. Um, so trying to hone down on the sources, um, update them to the most recent versions where possible or where new data has come out. Um, and I think in general there's a big push just to focus on pointing to data that people can easily access and understand and trying to like again this kind of overarching goal that connects these two projects where when someone sits down with the code there's clear designations and then they open up the map and it's clear what layers those designations point to. So you could have two tabs open on your browser and figure out what's going on in your property. Basically that's the goal. What is your sense of what's your assessment of accuracy overall of the map? I mean, you guys know anecdotally, probably just through the kind of experiences that Commissioner Halerson was mentioning, you know, like, yeah, there's false positives or no, actually, usually it's it's pretty right on.

I don't I don't I don't think I could give a number. Um, especially just because I don't county like administer permits. Um, so it's hard to say a number. I I false positives do happen and I think one of my goals for the CAO update in general is to provide relief for those situations. Um, even as we make the improvements to the viewer, that's is still an occurrence. Our maps are going to pick things up because they are intended to only be uh potential areas. Um, and that's always going to be the case. I mean, even as we improve science, I mean, maybe with more LAR, I mean, we saw that that map from DNR with the the landslides LAR that's pretty pretty close to like

real life. Um, but not every critical area is going to be that easy to pick up on with data like that. Um, and we're obviously still waiting for science to keep improving. So, it's pretty much always going to be a potential area, I think, especially for something as e ecologically complex as wetlands. Um, and that's what that kind of screening is for. And at least um getting to that stage where maybe someone has a letter from a biologist, but they did not have to go through the whole big report. Did we get some kind of presentation? Um like a overview survey of the county and the types of wetlands likely to be in different parts of the county. That would be really interesting to see like if you're in southwestern part of the county, this is the type of wetland, the type of habitat that is likely to be encountered on a property versus up in uh toward Nquali or something like that. I think that'd be a great thing to touch on in the next uh meeting actually because next time what we had planned for is a conversation to start introducing a little bit about fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas and then keep talking about wetlands as needed and also talk a little about how those things relate to each other. Um a lot of types of wetlands are lakes shores, streamside, riverside, uh coastal. Um so they're related to or even directly part of and connected to other bodies of water. And then those bodies of water are either shoreline or their fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas and so they have their own buffer system that applies and and yeah I think giving a overview of the county and just kind of seeing what types of habitat are in different places because also with especially south county then we start looking at prairie habitat which is in two sessions from now. We'll talk more about that.

Great. Those are cool.

It's like the commissioner Bartlett. Hello. Um, just it sounds like we're going to be getting at it next week or next next session, so we don't need to go into it now, but I did just want to highlight my interest in uh what Loretta was mentioning about the way that like gallery forests and river and river forests do they may not be technically wetland habitat, but they do end up heavily affecting wetland quality. And obviously that's a species specific thing so I think it's probably going to be mentioned next time but if not I wanted to highlight that com that public comment specifically and my interest in the data that she mentioned as being relevant to what we're talking about. Yeah, definitely. I think with the issue of forests, one of the exciting developments in state guidance, especially for fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas, which a lot of the times means streams in the areas next to them, um is the use of essentially taking directly into account the functions of those streamside forest to help determine the buffer. Um and we have a grant to kind of improve the information we have available on using that type of buffer. again kind of in line with using data that that exists and is public and all of that. Um but yeah, that that will be a big point of conversation for fish and wildlife habitat areas.

Anything else?

I have a quick question on option one. When we say buffer widths can be reduced with impact minimization, are we talking like mitigation? Um, so the impact minimization measures have a little more to do with the actual like um what you're doing when you build the project. Um, so there's like light pollution reduction, pointing lights away from the wetlands, sound reduction. Um, I can't think of all of them off the top of my head, but they basically have a table. Um, I think you guys got the the appendex from the ecology guidance that like has all the tables in it. Might be worth a little deep dive if you have time. Um but essentially if you include all these t these items in your development or they're not applicable and then you don't include them um then you can take the buffer that is reduced because essentially by reducing the impact that the development itself is causing. So you're you're talking a little more about like what's actually happening in the construction then that buffer doesn't need to be as large. And if you can't do those or you don't want to then you get a bigger buffer.

Yeah. And you contrast that with like avoidance, then minimization, and then mitigation. So you avoid, you like you just don't build in that area that's close to a wetland. Then you minimize. You might do some of the things that Claire talked about. And then if you can't avoid any of those, you might mitigate for the impacts. Okay? And that's usually something that would happen under a reasonable use exception.

Okay? Um, so that's kind of the line too is is with option one, we let people get into that minimization step without going all the way into RUE land and doing all the those expensive hoops. Um, and then once it is if it's time for mitigation, usually that would come from a reasonable use exception because they're actually getting into and disturbing the buffer, reducing the function of the buffer, and therefore it needs to be made up somewhere else, either on-site or offsite. Okay. Okay. Thanks. Anything else on this topic for today? We will be back with

I guess since the biologist and staff part come up. Can we put in there something, you know, some qualifications and just say if you if this person is a qualified biologist, their opinion outweighs county staff because I know and I I'm going to go back to prairies with this example. We had to do a study on our property and of course with prairies we have a list of people that we can use, right? We used one of those people. Came back. The person at the front counter said, "Well, you got to have gophers on this property. You have to do another study." And luckily we luckily I just said, "No, you know, we we hired somebody from your list of approved people." And you can't, as somebody who's just, I don't want to say just, but as somebody who's just a front desk person, you can't tell me that my biologist that you said is on a list of people I have to hire doesn't know what they're talking about.

So, can we put something I mean, I know we did that. What did we do that with recently where you could we could the county could revoke their license or their qualifications or whatever or take them off the list? Yeah. Mhm. But could we put something like that in there so that we have this list of things and then if some if we decide that somebody's a bad actor, we can say, "Okay, well, even though he he or she meets these qualifications, we we we're going to question when they submit a report."

I think um so this this idea in general, I think, is has is something we've already talked about. I've talked to our director Ashley Ry about about wanting to have something like that in place. Um, and I think it probably functions less as like a list of approved people, more of a like that using that definition for qualified professional that we got in the code update. Um, and then kind of taking into account like if somebody has certain number of reports that essentially we disagreed with, then there's some concern there. Um, I think it'd be hard to just say like we accept totally without review or like at least some back and forth uh if if it's necessary um a report from somebody just because part of review and this is true for anything that's prepared by any kind of professional part of why we look at it is also just to catch mistakes or things that we think have been misinterpreted or something like that. So even if somebody is totally qualified and they just miss something or there is some some type of mistake in the report, we might catch that and have it be corrected. And some of it might be sort of um more ministerial, some of it might be more contentoriented, but like that's also why we look at site plans even though those site plans were prepared by a site surveyor professional. Um we still have to verify that the information is good. So I would say yes and no. And there's a balance there and we can talk about

Yeah. I mean, I get I mean, obviously, you're looking for that stuff, but I also think that if a wetland biologist comes in with a report, staff can ask questions of that, no doubt. I think telling the applicant that that report is invalid and they need to go get another one because it doesn't match with what they think is a problem when they haven't even, you know, they've never even been on site. So,

so and I think this comes back to that idea that if we're a lot more clear about like a lot of them I think to Cla's point those kind of ministerial components like what what needs to be in a certain report for a certain uh you know a certain area if we're more clear about like a lot of a lot of those will probably get kicked back on like administrative for administrative reasons and if we're really clear about what those reports should include and kind of what level of scrutiny you know folks would have to do on site. Like the more clarity we provide upfront,

the more likely it's going to be that you show up with your report, we flip through it and looks like they've checked everything, they're qualified professional, it'll probably move forward.

Yeah. I think in general with the update as a whole when you get more things specifically stated in code like this type of report requires this methodology this information using this rating system by this type of defined qualified professional and people have all that up front then we get down a lot less to staff discretion that kind of discretion is the the big challenging word here and that's what's being used when someone's like well I kind think this matches this but using the code like it's not specific enough so I need to make some determinations and like that's where we get into a staff time is increasing b the cost of applicants is increasing and when the code is more specific and we really hone in on this is what we know we need for this type of requirement a lot of that discretion goes down we don't have to be as discretionary we can be more okay check check it meets the boxes in the code we know it's going to be Okay, we'll look at it for administrative stuff and then move on.

That's the type of example that I was referring to in my proposal because it's happened time and time again. I know that Colin Commissioner Bartlett. Yeah, I just want to second uh Commissioner Nelson's uh statement. I think I I mean it sounds like we're we're getting to a good place of mitigation on this. Um but I do uh how do I put it? I do uh I do never mind. I had a statement and I just lost it. I am in mode. Sorry. You got a lot of credit. It's fine.

Anybody else?

Like how often or how easy is it to update code? That's a big question. Um, this update is particularly big because it's the first time that we've touched this chapter of code, which is a pretty complex and important chapter uh in like 13 years or something uh in a major way. I mean, there's been little pieces along the way. Um, but we haven't done a big overhaul like this in a really long time. Um, ideally moving forward from here, we don't wait that long in between. And so then it's less of a big deal. As major new developments in science or guidance come out, we can make smaller chapter by chapter updates over time. Um, and that that's a lot more conservative of staff effort and it keeps the code more up to date so we don't get these big lapses. Uh, and that's the goal. And other the code, do you all have kind of like internal policies or procedures that staff could follow as well?

We do have an administrative procedures manual and a lot of that came out of these pieces of this code that have been challenging to implement. And so the goal of that is to especially as we know we're working on updating the code. Um make some of those administrative procedures that aren't necessarily codified clear and like consistent. I think consistency was the big key for that. it's in writing, there's an SOP and a manual, then those administrative procedures get more consistent. Okay. And I know that's been an effort in in recent months with our current side.

Just wondering if maybe the added detail that some of the commissioners have mentioned would be more adequate for like a procedure or guidance uh instead of code. I mean that's obviously for you all to kind of decide but I wouldn't want it to be like another you know 13 to 15 years before code is updated and staff be stuck with maybe some outdated proced like you know way to update an administrative procedures manual that

and that's probably a balance that we can look for where it's like how minute is too minute for code that this might get annoying in the future. we'd just like to keep it manual versus like what is it really worth having in code. And I think a lot of what we just talked about is worth having in code. Um but then some of those day-to-day steps for like how something comes in across the counter like like the the the actual like functioning and management of the team there that's that's way more manual stuff than code. Before we go back to Commissioner Bartlett and Commissioner Halverson, I want to check in with Commissioner Fishburn and Commissioner Pessinger, who I cannot see, but just to make sure that they haven't been up there frantically waving their hands.

Thanks for checking in. If I had something, I would have Can you hear me? I would have miked in. Yes. I'm off camera because my internet doesn't video very well. Okay, great. Commissioner Passenger, are you there? Okay, let's go then to Commissioner Halverson and then to Commissioner Bartlett. To Commissioner's point, one of the reasons for putting it in the code versus putting it in a the administrative policies is that the code is available to the public and they can see it, whereas the administrative policies are not. Oh, they are they're online. They're used by the staff. The code is what's used by the contractors and stuff.

That's fair. Yeah. Yeah. And that actually is a a a nice distinction where is is the staff the person following the instruction or is the applicant? And if it's the applicant, we want that in code. That that makes sense. I see what you're saying. But I could see an instance where we were talking about this like at what point do we challenge, you know, professional opinion, right? um like we could have the all of the standards and code and then the you know I could imagine a table in an administrative procedures manual that says under these conditions like we might challenge a like if it doesn't include all the required elements like no like if there's a requirement for like picture process exactly

so there some I think that's that's a really kind of healthy way to balance some of these because if you try and detail bail out all of the administrative procedures in code. Um like you're going to get something wrong, something's not going to work like you planned and you have to big process. Yeah. But the difference and you know this is that the code it it goes through the planning commission for approval and the policies don't. That's the big difference, right? which is if something is

a requirement being placed on someone who's coming to us for a permit, it's it's much better to have that go through this public process versus if it's a standard that we're managing ourselves to and holding ourselves to. That's that's more for our staff to kind of work out as they're functioning. Yeah. I don't remember. There was a Washington state supreme court decision challenging the department of colleg's use of their implementation policies for administrative policies and they argued that they were actually those should have gone through rule making because they were acting like rules. That was recent. That was 204. Yeah. What was it on? You don't remember. Was the yellow book.

Oh, okay. Okay. Commissioner Bartlett, then Commissioner Miller. Oh, okay. Thank you.

Thank you. I had uh uh remembered what I was going to say immediately after I got off, which is usually the way that works. Um and you guys covered it beautifully. Um my concern was one of process and I think that having a clear process, something that people can see immediately upon uh entering this proc like this system, something that outlines, okay, here's where I get kicked back. here's what happens if I get kicked back. Here are things to look for in the people that I hire to make sure that I won't get kicked back. Um, having that available and having us encouraging that to be available on the front for the user, I think is really important. Something that's a clear graphic chart of what the process is going to look like going forward forward with this specific issue. But yeah, I think you guys are covering it great. So, thank you.

Anyone else? Well, I'm going to come up with something I I just came up with. Um I don't know if staff has time to do this or not, but maybe we could or staff could invite some of the local licensed biologists to sit down at a round table and discuss what they think would be appropriate conditions or recommendations. Let me let's think about that.

I think it's a great idea about it. I think it the other the the other advantage I think we would have is that would get them involved in this process at some point and instead of waiting till we've already till our public hearing and having somebody come in with this big long technical explanation for something they might be able to get it to us sooner so we can actually and they would be able to answer questions better. It's a good idea. The ones that have had recent experience with submitting a wetland biological application.

We're going to take that one back in and see that. I

think that it's a good I mean like interest group to to be in contact with and reaching out to because I know like there are details and nuances of wetland reports like that not that policy oriented folks who aren't biologists like me don't necessarily know. I know a current uh one of the feedbacks that we got from our staff biologists was that we we do have a minor report section. The actual cost and time between the regular wetland report and the minor report as it's currently written in the code isn't very different. A biologist is doing about the same amount of work. So that's something we're definitely going to be looking out for as we try to to tweak how those reports function and where we provide relief from that administrative burden. Making sure the relief is actually there. I know we check that with the geohhazards.

Yeah. With our folks who review those like, hey, are these distinctions actually going to cost different amounts to the applicant? Yeah, probably. Um, so yeah,

it would be a good focus group. I'm wondering would it be helpful for you all as we plan next discussion um for us to give you kind of preferences as far as which option or like at least maybe like eliminate an option that it seems like nobody's really going towards. Would that be like helpful for you all or is it the same amount of work? Yeah, at some point we're gonna have to choose an option and um I think we'll either decide it before the code gets written or I'll come back with a couple different versions of code and at that point then come to you and say which of these tables do you like the best but I mean the tables are what's in the ecology guidance so you've got them. Um we don't have to come to a decision right now but um yeah any any guidance as it works for you guys and as you feel like you're ready to start giving guidance. Um yeah,

our convention in the past has been essentially if there's something short of something that needs like a motion and the planning commission is like we would like to see it move in this general direction, we do like a like a thumbs temperature check quasi vote before we send the staff down on a rabbit hole. Yeah, exactly. We would never do that. Okay.

Okay. Well, I think then we will proceed now to staff update. I don't have a lot of staff updates. One thing I do want to note is that we have a pretty unique open position currently. Um it's in our natural resources program. It's an associate planner position, but it's a streamflow restoration planner. Um, so this is not a super common um common position, but the idea is to hire somebody to work with local wershed groups and do um work on the county's stream flow restoration obligations. So this is actually pretty interesting uh position. It'll actually interface pretty closely between our community planning team and the natural resources. So, if anybody who works in those fields knows of anybody, maybe we have that position open and I think we're going to keep it open um until we find a really solid candidate. So,

great calendar with agenda items. Do we have a calendar to look at? the 15th. What the May date is? Sorry, I'm locked out of my computer. Uh yeah, the next one is on the 15th and then May is the 6th and the 20th. Missionary waiting.

Yeah. Is it is everyone planning to be here on the 15th either virtually or in person? Okay. What about May 6th? Anyone have any May 5th? I won't be here. Not I will not either. Okay. May 6th or May 6th. May 6. Yeah. Oh, excuse me. May 6th. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was May 5th. May 6th.

All right. Okay. Anything for the good of the order? Uh, yeah. We're doing cat tours at the farm again this weekend for anybody that's interested. What time are those? From 10 to 1. And have Easter eggs in their saws. No, but we are I do believe we're having an Easter egg hunt. If you got kids that are interested, they died all the calves different. Oh, yeah. They're well they're basically two colors. Some of some have different white markings. That's about the only difference in them.

Anything else for the good of the order. Okay, we're adjourned. Thank you. Okay. Well, it was great to have you in person, local. I know. like you