Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

of our own lives. Welcome to the Wednesday, June 17th, 2026 Thurston County Planning Commission meeting. The Planning Commission is a resident advisory committee to the Board of County Commissioners on land use planning matters, such as the comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance amendments. Planning Commission actions are in the form of recommendations to the County Commissioners, the final decision makers. All Planning Commission meetings are open to the public. Community members are welcome to observe all Planning Commission briefings and work sessions. public comment is allowed on these topics for which a public hearing has not yet been held. We're going to start out with introductions. Today, we'll start in the boardroom here. Down here with Commissioner Bumbarger.

Commissioner Bumbarger, District 1.

Barry Halverson, I live and serve in District 2. Commissioner Kaiser, can you hear us?

Yes, I can. I'm Sandy Kaiser, and I live and serve District 3.

Commissioner Miller.

I am commissioner. I'm Yvonne Miller. Um, and I live in serving district one.

Commissioner Fishburne.

Good evening. I'm Bill Fishburne. I live in serving district four.

Great. And I'm Eric Casino and I live in district two. And I do know that we are still expecting a couple more commissioners to show. Oh, it looks like commissioner Pestinger just arrived. Yep. Commissioner Pestinger. Can you hear us?

Yes, this is me. Can you hear me?

Yep.

All right. Well, with that, if everybody's had an opportunity to look over the meeting agenda, I'd entertain a motion.

Move to approve the agenda for June 17th, 2026. Second.

It's been moved and seconded to approve the June 17th agenda. Is there any discussion on this? All in favor, say aye. Aye.

All right, we have an agenda.

With that, we're going to move on to the public communication portion of our meeting. And I should... We don't have any meeting minutes to approve yet, do we? Do we have... Has everybody had an opportunity to look over the June 2nd, 2026 meeting? June 2nd? Thank you. June 3rd, meeting minutes. Everybody had an opportunity to look over these. These were sent out by email earlier. If so, I entertain a motion on them.

I move to approve the meeting minutes and accept the audio as official record for June 3rd, 2026. Second.

I move and second it to accept the meeting minutes from June 3rd, 2026. Is there any discussion on these meeting minutes? Yeah. All those in favor of accepting, say aye. Aye. Aye.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

I said I was discussing.

What did he say? He said he wanted to discuss.

He has discussion.

Well, I'd like to hear what you have to say, Commissioner Pessinger. So what would you like to discuss?

I asked, we're talking about, let's see, the minutes, page three. Line 14, sorry, that's the wrong one. On page four, line seven, nope, that's the wrong one. Sorry, I can't find what I remembered, or what I had wanted to change, but it was just a minor thing, thank you.

Thank you very much. With that, we're going to move on to the public communication portion of our meeting. I should note that today we are going to have a public hearing. So if you're here for the public hearing, you'll have an opportunity to talk or to address the planning commission specific to that at that time. But for other inquiries or other discussion, we would welcome that at this point. Public communication. Okay. We do have some general speaking guidelines. Please introduce yourself, including the address you reside in the county. Please address the planning commission, not the audience or staff. The planning commission may not respond to public comments. Speakers are limited to a total of three minutes. The timer will show on one of this video screens to help keep track of time. Meeting attendees cannot donate their speaking time to another person. No comments that are lewd and offensive, inflammatory, hateful, defamatory, or discriminatory in nature. All comments that are no comments that are commercial in nature. All materials provided to the county may be subject to the release pursuant to the Public Records Act. Remarks on projects that have already had planning commission public hearings will be forwarded to the Board of County Commissioners for their considerations. With that, we're going to start with comments from in the boardroom and we'll start with Christy White.

Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Christy White, and I live in the Delphi Valley. My comments tonight focus on the evening's gap analysis for geologically hazardous areas, and to provide clarification, these are in comments I made at the June 3rd, 2026 Planning Commission meeting. First, thank you to the Planning Department staff for the thoughtful gap analysis presentation of the geologically hazardous areas CAO update. Great work. The effort to listen and incorporate public input is very much appreciated. We look forward to additional details and before and after examples that help illustrate how the proposed changes would work. We also appreciate that this is the first of several CAO chapters to be reviewed and appreciate this gap presentation. We do ask, given the complexity of the updates, only having a few days to review the detailed code is not feasible. We request adequate time for community review of the revised chapter codes and that the planning commission not finalize the codes until a reasonable review period has been provided. Secondly, I would like to clarify my previous meeting comments regarding three protection ordinances. My intent was simply to encourage staff to review a few jurisdictions with recognized tree protection programs and identify ideas or approaches that may be useful. While other communities are not directly comparable to Thurston County, they may still offer concepts that could be adapted or incorporated into our CAO. Each of the CAO chapter updates presents an opportunity to consider and incorporate useful ideas from other jurisdictions. As a career manager, I very well understand balancing priorities with limited budget and staffing resources. Many of us volunteer our time to research examples, share information, and bring forward concepts that may be helpful to the Commission and staff. These comments are offered in a spirit of collaboration and support for the CAO update. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Bonnie?

Hi, I'm Bonnie Blessing. I live in the Baby Creek Watershed up in the headwaters. I'd like to talk about, let's see, creation and being a good neighbor. By creation, I mean like how habitat works. was created and seemingly is continuing to kind of be created. I would love to sit on, I like to paddle, but inlet and see, see the pigeon Gilmots and know that there's still some Chinook salmon. And I know they eat like little fish that are in this sand and the sand might come from a coastal bluff, but where did that coastal bluff come from? So I love to learn about where and how that coastal bluff, And so I'd love to time travel back to when Glacial Lake Russell was sitting there dropping sediment sand and silt down on the bottom and an experience addling across that and knowing that was going to create future habitat. And then time travel for the soil that would deposit that would create habitat. And sometimes that habitat is allowed to create because we let the beaches slough off, because some people built back enough to not have problems. They built back from these coastal bluffs, protecting themselves and protecting salmon and protecting orcas. I'd like to fast forward to the glacial outburst floods, the Tanuaxoha flood and the floods that went through the Black River because those created vast flat marshes and they created a weird connection between Mount Rainier and the Maima Mounds way off to the west. Really weird, but geologists are finding out that a massive landslide up there on the side of Mount Rainier 13,000 years ago sent a big flood thing across a lot of Thurston County and was somehow part of creating mima mounds and part of creating a lot of weird habitats for some amazing species. Washington's only endemic fish, the Olympic mud minnow, the Oregon spotted frog. If you look at page three of what I set out earlier, it shows these flat areas and that somehow the Tanwax-Ohaw flood created these flat areas that are really good for holding water and preventing flooding downstream and creating habitat in really weird ways. Figure three on page three does show West Rocky Prairie and how the Tanwax Ohop flood crossed that some years ago. And page four shows coastal bluffs and pictures of sand lands that the salmon really needs. If you don't have it, there we go. And as far as like being a good neighbor, many other jurisdictions recommend that people protect their neighbor by not clear cutting on slopes that are prone to sliding causing problems for people downstream. That's in Lewis County. In Seattle, they recommend not pumping groundwater where it's going to drain peat a mile away. I mean, if you pump over here, it's going to lower stuff over there. And we have greenwood peat here that if we pump certain wells, the water will go down in those areas. and causing hazards. I think they're hazards because we lose the road and we lose houses. In Greenwood, where I used to live, the pumping actually caused roller coasters. I mean, because the land literally subsided. But I urge you to think about how Habitat was created and think about how to be a good neighbor. Thanks.

Thank you very much. Michelle Brigham?

Yeah, I'm here for the public hearings.

Oh, okay. Okay. Rhonda Larson-Kramer.

My name is Rhonda Larson-Kramer. I live at 1814 East Side Street, Southeast in Olympia. The JOLT recently published an article discussing concurrency under the Growth Management Act. The article reminded me of another planning concept that is relevant to your discussion about whether to default city code in urban growth areas outside the city limits in terms of critical area ordinances and tree codes. That other GMA concept is called sequencing. Concurrency focuses on whether infrastructure and services are available when development occurs. Sequencing focuses on whether development is occurring in the right place in order so that infrastructure and services can be provided efficiently over time. The Growth Management Act seeks to avoid leapfrog development and seeks to encourage growth to occur in a logical progression outward from existing urban areas. When development occurs on the fringe first, infrastructure must be extended greater distances and urban services often lag behind development. For example, the residents of the preserve on 93rd in Southern Tumwater may wait years before they have the level of transit typically associated with urban development. That illustrates some of the challenges that can arise when growth occurs on the fringe ahead of the full build out of urban services. The Growth Management Act does not envision UGAs as one large area where development should occur anywhere and everywhere at the same intensity. Instead, growth is intended to occur in a logical progression outward from existing urban development. I was concerned by statements made during previous meetings suggesting that development standards within UGAs should be weakened because otherwise we will never be able to meet our goal of having no more than 5% of new housing located outside UGAs. During the countywide planning as part of a comprehensive plan update, cities agreed to accommodate their allocated growth, if you recall. The premise of the Growth Management Act is that urban growth should occur in urban areas. If there are concerns about housing capacity, those concerns should be addressed through the countywide planning process and city planning efforts, not by making it easier to build leap front development on the fringe in new GAs. I was also concerned by the suggestion that county regulations are inappropriate for UGAs because county regulations were designed for more rural growth patterns. The purpose of land use laws is not simply to accommodate growth, but to guide where and when that growth occurs. The county's role is to encourage orderly sequencing of development to avoid leapfrog growth. In some cases, that may mean county regulations should be different from city regulations precisely because the area has not yet been urbanized. Thanks.

Thank you. I think this is Betsy. Oh, Betsy.

Sorry.

I couldn't see her back there.

That's okay. I'm just feeling diminished. My name is Betsy Norton. I just have a few comments. First of all, regarding the timeline for the CAO, please post a public draft of the new code significantly prior to October, incrementally if possible. As we've seen from experience with the comp plan amendments, it's really important for the public to see the actual text being proposed in order to fully assess its impact. Secondly, regarding the gap analysis, which we appreciate, I would just ask you to add, cite your references for the best vestigial science, the WACs and the RCWs that would help us understand them and learn from them. And would you please also just add a brief example of the change when you're showing the gaps there, the change in a small bit of text, just so we make sure that we're understanding things properly. That would be helpful. And then regarding the geologic hazards CAO, I would ask you to add to the purpose of that that the purpose must protect ecosystem functions of connected landscapes. This is sort of going along with what Bonnie was talking about in terms of sort of an expanded impact. Because, you know, when you're talking about geologic hazards, they're big events and they have lots of downstream impacts and they are often located in areas where there is There's conservation or there are natural areas with lots of habitat. And so it's really important to protect them and also to elevate the importance of protecting the conserved areas as well as the built properties. I would add also to include in geological hazards, those hazards created by human activity, not just coal mines, but also surface mines and water reservoirs. Anthropogenic changes which create or increase the risk of geologic hazards for the local area. This would mean, for example, that Two examples of the created geological hazards are surface mining creates steep slopes, not just on what you can see there, but also underneath in the mining ponds. Those are very steep slopes as well. And during the life of the mine, which can go anywhere from, you know, 20 to 50 years, whatever it is, a lot of times they don't do the reclamation incrementally. So that part is exposed that whole time. And secondly, a lot of mines are abandoned. And so you end up with these topographic changes, both above and below the water line that really need to be managed as hazards and not managed as anything else. I would just, I happened to look at a proposal for a water reservoir and it occurred to me that when you put a water, you know, 3 million gallons of water sitting on the edge of a slope, steep slope presents its own risk. So please think about that as well.

Thank you very much. Is there anybody else in the boardroom that would like to address the Planning Commission right now? All right. Well, do we have anybody online that would want to address the Planning Commission? Ms. Sepinen.

Good evening, Planning Commission. Loretta Sepinen. I live in Olympia.

I'm

talking to you about the geological hazards chapter. It was very helpful to see the results of the gap analysis that staff did and their recommendations. I support, encourage the Planning Commission to move all of those forward to the extent that I understand them. And one of the questions the staff ask is, are there any other areas? And you've already heard from, like Betsy just had several up there she would want to add. I wrote a An email which I think you received that had six additions that I'd like to make in this chapter and I'm just going to use the time to highlight three of them. The first one is about that place and the staff mentioned this that in the when they reviewed the best available science that often geological hazard areas are entered their word was intertwined with habitat areas and I think we can recognize that better if we fix up a little section in the land slide area that was about removing hazardous trees. It's way back on page 18 of that part of the document. And it's assumes basically that you're gonna, if you need to remove a hazardous tree that you maybe like take it away. Elsewhere in code and including in this section, But in other code in the county, and I've listed that in my document, you're talking about leaving snags, you know, a hazardous tree, but you leave the snag or you push the trees into a stream or just on the land so that create habitat. and that you leave down trees. So I'm just saying those are all habitat related things in a geological hazard area. Let's bring those words into the code. They're not there right now in that particular code. Then another one is about who does all these reporting? What are the professional requirements? This is item five on my list. The professional requirements for are basically the engineering geologists and the geotechs. And I listed that these are not in the main chapter. They're in a whole other section called general reports and we haven't even looked at that yet. And I'm thinking we should bring it in. There's simple little things. There's just straightforward statements about who's the specialist who needs to write the reports and just bring it into the document. And then as I looked at them, there's some inconsistencies that maybe were just mistakes created because a different person wrote that section of the code. And you could solve that problem. And I'll just do the last one very quickly. In the special overlay districts, I'd say we should call it a special landslide overlay district so you know it's about landslides. But you need some more words in there dealing with the Carline Beach area. And I suggested what some of those words could be. Thank you for considering all six of my questions. recommendations for improving this section of our entire critical area ordinance. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Is there anybody else online that would like to address the planning commission? All right. We're going to move on to a public comment communication debrief if staff wants to make any comments on any of this.

I don't want to shoot from the hip on any of these. There are some pretty good ones. I will say that I think there are two sides to the leapfrog development. It is true that it can create a pattern where you don't have services out there. Also, there are cases where you have a development that's large enough to pull services past the rest of the area. So that can be a strategy in an area where you don't have the services available. large enough development might be enough to trigger the services to go all the way out. So when we look around the county and see places that are unserved, sometimes we'll think about like, is there a place you could pull services past them? Otherwise, I think there's some really good suggestions. And I think Claire is not here tonight. So I don't want to make any promises that she has to keep on our behalf. But we can take a lot of this into consideration. I'm glad the gap analysis seems to have been useful. So I think we'll continue using that as a tool.

OK. Nothing else that you want to tackle at this point? No, unless you all have questions. Does anybody have questions of staff about public comment that we've received?

OK.

Well, we're going to move on to the next portion of our agenda, which is new business CAO work session number 17, which is our gap analysis. And I'm going to guess that Eric, are you going to take that over since I do the short straw players out tonight?

Okay. So I'll get it. Andy's going to drive the presentation. We're going to tag team in Claire's absence. Um, And between the two of us, we might be able to answer about half the questions that Claire could have. So just a fair warning. All right. This is a presentation developed by one and only Claire Spurgeon. And we're going to talk about the geohazard gap analysis. This is to kind of walk through it a little bit. And really, we want to be able to assess the tool more than anything. Is this a valuable and useful thing for the Planning Commission? We think it provides some value for us internally, too. So I think we could be in that. win-win situation here. So the gap analysis presentation today, we're going to be talking, we'll walk through a little bit of kind of what we were able to glean from the best available science. Also see if there are any recommendations for changes, and then we can have some discussion about it if we'd like. So the best available science on geohazards isn't as robust and in-depth as some of the other areas. like fish and wildlife habitat, things like that. Really some of the big changes and things that we're incorporating here are the increased risk of landslides due to climate change. That's something that shows up pretty clearly in the literature. Also, again, many of the geological hazard areas are intertwined with habitat. They're an important part of habitat forming processes. I know I learned that from all of the geomorphologists that I got to follow around in my former career. Also understanding the channel migration zone as an erosion risk. That's another big component of the best available science. And then probably the most impactful thing that we have in this critical areas origins update is the updated mapping that the Department of Natural Resources has done. This is a very significant advancement for geological hazards. Very important. And then we have a series of other changes. So we're not only changing the critical areas ordinances based on science, but that is the core of what we're doing. There are other things that we're trying to do. And we've talked about and had on full display during some of the demonstrations we did with how difficult it can be to permit a project, even when it seems like it should be straightforward. transparency is really important in our screening tools and report requirements. We get that from that LIDAR data that gives us the ability to create really, really effective screening tools, not perfect, but very good. And then also use those screening tools and set that kind of right size reporting requirements based on the level of risk that the screen gives you. Flexibility is important too. Again, kind of right sizing some of these. And then we want a code that is clear and navigable. So the gap analysis itself, this is kind of a list of the different things that when we look at the code, the things that we saw, we either saw gaps in science, we saw issues with usability or access or accessibility. And we've outlined in these different sections of the gap analysis. This is also in the memo that you all got kind of what the code section is, what its title is, what the recommendation is, and kind of what was the impetus or where the genesis of that change was. So we'll find things here. For example, we've got usability and accessibility. We've got consistency with data. That's designations. We've got best available science, again, usability, accessibility. So that's a little bit of the, what we've changed, kind of where it lives, and the why behind it.

Yes, these are kind of here as a reference, but as Derek mentioned, they're described in greater detail in the memo as well.

So a couple of, again, this is pretty quick and pretty simple. We just wanted to share the tool and get any feedback that you all had on how we might use this, how we might tweak it. Like we heard that references, embedded references might be useful from the public comment.

I would echo that as well. Best available science is helpful, but in your own description, is the literature. I'm very curious, what literature? Where are we sourcing that? Who wrote it?

It's an end note reference, not footnote or embedded reference, but the The gap analysis itself does have the literature that we've compiled and gone through to make the assessments on best available science. So I think the difference would be we would, in like the table that we've got, we might want to reference back to when we say best available science, which of the references are we referring to?

So that is a... Just to back up towards the beginning at kind of a higher level when we're talking about increased risks, do you believe or has there been any analysis done on are these increased risks from climate change or are these risks that we already saw but we're just identifying them because of better lidar and better mapping or how much of each of these is really influencing that increased risk factor so the way that we would be looking at this is the the literature is pretty clear on the things that like if you think about landslide risk

What influences landslide risk? And there are a whole host of different factors. Like what is, I mean, you've got things like your land cover, you've got soil moisture. Like all of those things impact your duration of rain. There are all of these factors that can impact it. And then if we look at, like in the science here, we've got Gilles Magier, his work here, a lot of this is like climate projections. So we're able to look at the things that influence landslide risk and see how those change in the future. So we would expect things like, you know, we're going to have more frequent, longer duration rainfall in some seasons. So spring is our landslide season, like March is like, that's your peak landslide season, because it's the wettest, and we might expect wetter springs or longer wet periods and get more saturated soil and lubricate those slopes and cause them to fail. So we've taken the best available science, which is what causes landslides and how that might change in the future due to climate change and incorporate that into the thinking about the code updates.

I guess I'm kind of thinking also along the lines a little bit tangential to that is if some of these increased risks are because of climate change, how much of a risk increases because of the development itself that we've already had. Cause I can't, I don't know if, you know, heavy spring rains are going to bring on more landslides than clearing out our bluffs. I think those would interact synergistically together. Yeah. Do we, do we have any kind of way to quantify that in one way or another? Um,

quantify it i don't know that we have the resources we could i would say that we probably have like the staff and the tools if we wanted to pull several people off of their full-time i don't i i wouldn't ask for that yeah but um

I guess part of this is these are going to be building development decisions that we're going to have to make at some point or another. And if that's really where we're going to have our biggest impact over whether or not, you know, we don't, we can't do a lot about climate change, but we can do a lot about development impacts.

And I think the way that I would think about this is it's a, given this is the likely projection that, it just gives us the question, what do we think the appropriate prescription is? If we, if we assume that this is the direction that things are moving, uh, what would the, what would the, the best prescription for that be? And we are at this point, we are, uh, We're just at the point at the county and we're working on a project where we have just enough local temperature and rainfall data to basically, you know, we're going to be able to look back at 25 years worth of data. You need somewhere in the 25 to 30 year range to be able to hit enough of the Pacific decadal oscillations to know whether or not you're just catching a Pacific decadal oscillation or a trend. But we're right on the cusp of where we're going to be able to get some good information out of the really good data that we have, and then maybe lining it up with some of the data that they have coming out of the monastery at this point. So we're going to be able to do a localized assessment of whether or not we've caught that kind of first wave of that climate trend.

For all the microclimates within the county separately?

I'm not sure how detailed it's going to be, but we do... I don't know if we have the data across all of the microclimates, but we might be able to see it in the ones that we have the best data for.

If we do get that granular detail, are we expecting that we're going to have different code for different areas?

So we do have a project that we're working on right now. It would apply, for example, you might want to use a different set of rainfall data for your stormwater pond model. because there's that specific microclimate. And we're working on right now trying to identify for which types of projects, which types of sets of data are gonna give you the most accurate answer. So we're working on a guidance that says, you know, if you're doing, you know, stormwater pond in this part of the county, and instead of using historic data, you want to use projected data for your HSPF model, this is the data set that would be most likely to give you a good answer for 20, 40 years from now.

So it could. Okay. Anybody got some more questions for staff on this?

Who's applying the data? We have, in which sense? Oh, well, water resources, which under stormwater or CPED.

So we have the water and climate planning team. That's Mark Beaver's team. So that's Mark and Kevin and Jade and Tyler. So Josh, don't forget anybody. And that team is doing data analysis currently. So they're doing the data analysis. And then, like you said, applying the data, we would do the analysis, provide guidance. And then in the case I just mentioned, that would be a stormwater design engineer would decide which data set they want to use in the analysis. in the hydrologic model that they use to size their stormwater facility.

Okay, so when a permit comes in, a request to build or whatever, it goes through planning in the CPED. They identify that it is in a geological hazard area. Then they kick it to who?

It's in a geologic hazard area. That data, in that sense, it would be the the project proponent would retain a geotechnical engineer that would do a site-level assessment. So Nim can correct me if I'm not that wrong.

No, that's correct. And then it does get sent to Mark Beaver's team for review when they submit.

Okay, so they're hiring a professional with expertise in that area, someone that the county has pre-approved for that type of work. Or they have the credentials. Right, the credentials that the county is requiring. Right. and they submit their findings in a document. It's reviewed by your team. And then the team decides that it doesn't meet their requirements.

So one of the features of this update is that we don't want to play the bring me a rock game. I have to tell people, sorry, wrong rock. We want to be a lot more upfront about the kind of assessment that you're going to need to get, which will, that's a way to keep us from getting into that situation. If we're all kind of in agreement that, you know, this is how much assessment we really should need. It needs to be about this big for us to really know that what we're doing here is safe. Or it's only got to be this big. It's going to be smaller. Sorry for the record. I'm making size of document pantomimes. We don't want to review those and spend time reviewing those and kick those back as much as anybody wants those kicked back. So this system should really allow us to have a lot higher likelihood that those are going to be good reviews and that we're not going to have to spend a lot of time or energy really digging through them, correcting them that we do see now. So Mark spends a significant amount of time.

My point is, and you know why I'm coming from. Yeah. is that we've had problems with permits being filed. These very expensive analysis done by contractors that have been told to the project person that, you know, county is going to accept this person. They submit the report, cost of seven, $8,000. And then they say, well, no, we can't use this.

Yeah. Yeah, this update is deeply informed by Mark's experience with the kinds of geotechnical reports that he gets and making sure that we're telling people what they need to give us before they go out and hire a geotechnical professional.

Is Mark's work then going to be and his team's work going to be directly impacting the drainage manual then? Or how's public works and his team going to?

That's a collaborative effort. We've got folks from our team, myself, some other folks from Mark's team that are involved in that manual update. Okay.

I can't believe we don't have more commentary for Claire.

We're just really lucky that you guys all had questions about things that I started my wheelhouse. Two things. It sounds like while we can give some additional detail to hopefully not create double work, there's definitely hard to quantify qualitative component to this. And I understand we can't maybe necessarily give a perfect list of everything we need. But I think what we could do, the county could potentially do is provide some good examples Right? Like, it costs next to nothing to say, hey, here's a series of well-received packets that have things that we need. Not saying copy and paste, but this gives you an idea of what we're looking for. Like a template? Not a template. Just like an example. Hey, this was a successful one. This has the level of detail we want. This covers the topics that we want. Right? Anyone who's a professional in the field should be able to look at that and say, okay, I understand what you want. And that way you're not having to make, well, you're probably unlikely to make a very detailed list, but that can at least get them closer to getting what they need the first time. Just a thought. And then the second thing was, I just want to make sure we addressed it. I know public comment mentioned adding something for anthropogenic sources of geological hazards. I'm just curious what CPED staff's thoughts on that are. Is that feasible? Is there any issues of at least adding and defining it in this update?

I think we can definitely look at that one. I don't want to speak out of turn and make promises that I can't keep. But that's a good note, and I think we'll definitely dig into it.

And it fits with sort of how we've been updating things through all of our processes, at least since I've been here. That was the only thing I wanted to cover. Thank you.

That's all. We've got the project schedule up on the screen now. In the next meeting, we will cover the gap analysis for CARAs and the Corporation of Feedback Planning Commission may have at that time.

Just on the specific to the gap analysis that you folks are doing, is there any questions from the Planning Commission on how that's laid out or the format or if we're missing something that you guys want to see?

Well, to public comment's point, we don't want... actual language to be coming out towards the end of that, right? The public needs time to digest the actual language that we're proposing. So if there's like quarter point or third points that we can put in there and just say, this is what we've covered so far so that we can start making informed changes to those things based on public feedback not just on conceptual things but actual revisions we're proposing that would be my like that timeline needs those little markers like when we're gonna put another little chunk up for the public to look at no it's not even just the public it's us yeah yeah it's us too yeah yeah i'm but i don't i don't want to end up in a situation where we're given several hundred pages like a week before like because it's happened i'm just like great there goes my weekend

Okay. Anybody online have any questions for staff? Did we lose them?

Do we still have our folks online?

We have Pestinger, but I don't know. Commissioner Bartlett did join us. He was? Yeah. Oh, they're all there. Not everyone. I think they're in the panelists. Sorry about that. Fell off our screens. Okay. Well, thank you, staff. I don't know how we noticed our public hearing. Did we say 7 o'clock or 7.30 for our public hearing when we noticed it? 7.30 is what I saw on the agenda this evening. Well, it's on the agenda, but how did we notice it? Because if it's noticed at 7 o'clock, then we can do it. But if it's noticed at 7.30, we can't start our public hearing yet.

So do you know the legal notice that went out?

I had said 7 p.m. or soon thereafter.

Okay, so we could start. So we could we could start our public hearing if there's no complaints.

It's usually at 7 o'clock. That's why on the agenda I saw. Okay, maybe we're going to get the entire CA workshop number 17 done before and we did. Amazing. We were more efficient on this.

Yes, please.

So I've been reviewing this latest document we were sent about potential tax shifts and tax reductions for the open space is this going to be document going to be used in the hearing public hearing yes yes i gotta say that the table on page two is or maybe not page two yeah it looks like it's page two the large table that has three gardner properties and four mccown properties uh it's quite confusing i'm pretty good with spreadsheets and something here doesn't quite add up um but do you do you want to wait until after the public hearing and we share this or should i try to clarify something now i think we're going to have the public hearing then we'll do a work session on the whole thing and we can discuss all that then if that's sounds reason that's unreasonable for works okay okay and we're gonna

start with our public hearing. Today, we're here to hold a public hearing on the open space applications for Gardner Revocable Living Trust and Brendan McCown. There's a sign-in sheet at the entrance of the room. If you wish to testify, please make sure you have signed in at the entrance, but I do have you on here already. I don't know if anybody else here is there. If you are on Zoom, do we have any attendees on Zoom?

There's one person, Vanessa Lavelle, who is online. I'm not sure if she wishes to speak.

If you're on Zoom and wish to testify, please choose the raise your hand option. If you are dialing, press star nine to raise your hand. And I'll call your name and unmute you when it's your turn to speak. Make sure you choose star six to unmute yourself. Each person will have three minutes to testify. I'll call names out for oral testimony. When you hear your name, please come forward and testify. Time may not be given to another person. When testifying, please provide your name and address for the record, and we will have a timer available as well. This public hearing is now open, and we're going to start with a staff presentation.

Good evening, commissioners. For the record, my name is Marissa Wissman with Community Planning. This evening, we're here to hold a public hearing on the Gardner Revocable Living Trust and McCown Open Space Tax Program applications. The purpose of the Open Space Tax Program is to conserve open space lands, which the Open Space Taxation Act under RCW 8434 requires of county governments and where tax reductions are granted if qualifying properties are maintained in a rural undeveloped state. Staff is currently processing the Gardner Revocable Living Trust and McCown applications. The proposed 38.47 acre and 159.2 acre properties are located at 23932 Pessner Road Southeast and 19732, 128th Avenue Southeast, both of which lie east of Bald Hill Road Southeast outside of Yelm and the Nisqually Water Resource Inventory Area in an incorporated Thurston County. The applicants proposed to enroll 33.37 and 155.2 acres of their properties respectively in open space, both under the Farm and Agricultural Conservation Land category. The McCown properties have four residential structures to subtract. Both sites have a history of farming, which has included raising livestock, honey and fruit production, and both were formerly enrolled in the county assessor's farm and agriculture program, which does make them eligible for the board's farm and agricultural conservation land category. The applicants wish to enroll their properties under this resource category while continuing to maintain open pasture, hay and graze livestock for three points and 50% reduction for each parcel. However, two of the McCown properties are also enrolled in a grassland reserve program conservation easement, which makes these two parcels each eligible for a 90% reduction under our open space tax program rules. The Gardner revocable living crust and McCown properties meet the criteria for enrollment under open space farm and agricultural conservation land for the points and reductions applied for. Based on the following factors, which are included in RCW 8434 and our open space tax program guidelines, the properties were formerly enrolled in the assessor's classification and continued maintenance, haying and grazing will keep these properties available for future commercial ag use. Land conservation plans were submitted with the application materials, which is a requirement for this resource category. The Planning Commission held a work session on April 15, 2026 on the current open space applications. And at the end of this work session, the Planning Commission agreed to set this public hearing. Notice of the public hearing was published to the Nisqually Tribune on May 28th of this year. Additionally, a webmail announcement was sent to the Community Planning Division's email listserv on June 8th of this year, and a press release was issued on June 10th, as well as notification letters sent to all neighbors within 500 feet of the applicant's parcel. Thurston County Community Planning updated the website with all available documents being considered at this hearing. As of today, two public comments have been received. Both were generally in favor of this proposal, although one was concerned about whether the Grassland Reserve Program conservation easement would be affected by enrollment in this program. And the other was concerned about the tax shift to other landowners. Commissioners, following any public comment or testimony, I'm asking the Planning Commission to recommend approval of the classification of 33.37 and 155.2 acres of the Gardner Revocable Living Trust and McCown properties as open space land for current use assessment. Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

I think, go ahead. Just one question. But you said Nisqually Tribune. You mean the Nisqually Valley News? Yes, the Nisqually Valley News.

Well, we're going to move into public comment, and then we'll do our work session. So for public comment, we'll do our questions after public comment.

Okay.

So up first, we have Michelle Brangham.

Hello, Commissioners. My name is Michelle Bregum and I own property that are neighboring the McCown property. The address is 1-9500-128th Avenue, Southeast Yelm. And I am here to support the McCown application. I wrote Marissa that I was concerned. You may hear me speak in future and you heard me speak a couple of weeks ago about the neighbors on the opposite side of this property that have definitely abused land, abused the neighborhood, abused neighbors. And I will be speaking in future about that. But I want to be clear that when I speak about that, I'm not speaking about the McCowns on the other side. So I'm very much in support of conservation. I'm very much in support of open land use. I think it's needed. The development in this county is just going at a rapid pace. And I think farmers, people willing to continue preserve open space are important to support. So I support my neighbors. Also, I've noted that tansy, scotch broom, Himalayan blackberries, other invasive plants are starting to encroach on my land from this conservation easement because it has, since the cattle left, you know, it's gotten out of hand. So I'm hoping with the proposal from the McCombs that this will be reintroduced. In fact, I have cattle myself and we are interested in leasing part of that land if the McCowns are interested in that. So I do support it and I hope you do approve their application.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Is there anybody else in the boardroom that would please?

Hello, my name is Bonnie Blessing, Headwaters of Beatty Creek. I don't know exactly where this property is. I guess my concern is twofold. Will the continued... haying and mowing increased soil temp that would increase stream temp nearby? Is there a stream nearby? Can you do a review and find out if there's a stream nearby that is already listed for temperature and suss out whether the continued ag activities would warm up the water temp in the stream? I buy hay from folks down on the hay list. And I tell you, in August when they're cutting the hay, it's like the soil is almost hot. And I've always wondered if that heat and that swell makes it over to the creek. And then secondly, do they need a water right? Are they needing to continue using a water right to continue to grow hay or fruit trees or even cattle that would modify in-stream flows anywhere nearby? So I'm just asking you to just ask. I mean, maybe it doesn't. I'm generally in favor of this, but it's just two questions that I would like to hear. whether the stream is cold enough and whether there's any water being used that would otherwise need to be in the river. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anybody else in the boardroom want to address the planning commission? How about anybody online? Raise your hand if you'd like to address the planning commission in this public hearing. I don't think we have any other public comment to be made. So with that, this public hearing is now closed and we can start a work session and comments and commissioner Pestinger, if you'd like to start, you'd be welcome.

Thank you, chair. Um, so looking at page two of the tax information, um, It refers to a savings, or I'm sorry, a tax increase of $5.72. You know, right after it compares with the current levy rate and with the new levy rate, 1275.45 and 1280.72. I think that's just a typo. They meant to say $5.27 and not 572. That's the delta between those two numbers. That's just a minor thing. Now looking at that table, there's a lot of question marks around the McCown properties and the calculations.

Oh, yes.

Starting with the first parcel, it talks about the market value, $615,900, and then open space current use value. And it talks about the star with the 90% reduction. I think in the following explanations below, going down to the McCown example, it talks about the current market value is $615,900, buildings $1,054,400 for a total of $1,670,300. That part right there, that sentence sounds accurate to me. That does not match this up here. This up here just doesn't make sense. 1,115,990 is exactly $500,090 higher than the land value. So if you were to reduce the land value by 90% and then add the building value, maybe that still should be the 1.67 million number. Yeah, go ahead.

I was just to say those tables that had been provided by JJ previously for the McCown were just kind of quick examples that were factoring in land values and didn't include structures. And I should have explained that in this more, I put this more recent document together because I felt like it was a little bit more organized and kind of summarized compared to all the information that was previously sent. And also in response to the public comment that was concerned about the tax shift, I felt like I should go more into that and have that more laid out. But however, that previous table from McCown was just factoring in the land.

Okay. It's not. I mean, $1,115,000 is not just the land.

I was referring to JJ's previous table.

Okay. Well, I mean, I think it's a valuable table. I just think it's got a few errors. And the bottom line is, if you look at all of this, you say at the end of the... Gardner summaries of the two parcels for Gardner. You notice that statement in bold. Gardner total potential tax reductions, 1,288.98. So that's great and useful, and I think that's accurate. That does not exist at the end of the McCown example. There's not a summary of adding up those four things, four parcels, and what the tax savings are. I think that would be needed and useful for us and for the public to see what is the tax savings amount in total we're talking about here, because, you know, it's cute to say $5 and 27 cents change to a tax parcel. That's of a similar rate, 231,900, but that's for the tax savings on a $231,900, $231,900 parcel. That's not the tax savings on this stuff. That's valued at somewhere around 1.7 million. So I think it'd be good to know what is the total tax savings for the account properties and the numbers, even in that table. Like if you look at the far right taxes with open space enrollment and the bottom line says 446 53. That's only a total of those bottom two numbers. It does not include the top two parcels. And that's what their taxes would be. We need to know what their tax savings is. According to this, their taxes difference there would be $12,000 or $13,400. I think their tax savings is much less than that, but it would still be very good to know.

Yes, I would be glad to correct that. My apologies. The reason I didn't use McCown as thoroughly as an example, particularly in the tax shift, is because it's a lot more complicated than Gardner. Like some of their properties are in the tax code area 221 and some are in 182. And they also have more complications. The assessor would have better knowledge than I for valuing. So Gardner just seemed... straightforward run through with that example. Because they're all in Area 221. They're all just land. And I felt like it would be less of a bumpy example to run through. But, yeah, I am glad to run back through this document.

That sounds great. If you just look at that table, though, for McCown, like next to nothing adds up. Not if you go up and down. Not if you go sideways. Those numbers just don't add up.

I'll check that back.

Just take a relook at all of the numbers in there or take the whole table out and just make a summary at the bottom for the McCown property.

And I did try to show my work and originally that was what I had kind of running through and then I at the last minute thought well summarizing this in a table would be a lot tidier for your review and Not that it's any excuse whatsoever, but I unfortunately ran out of time. And I was hoping to make a document that could be used for future briefings and hearings that would kind of summarize everything. So I'm glad to make improvements. Of course, you know, we wouldn't have the specific property information in every case, but maybe put together a similar kind of table or summary. So I really appreciate your.

would and do apologize if there were you're welcome i find this helpful i either way no matter what the numbers are i can be comfortable with them and i'm in support of this recommendation so i i don't it doesn't change my support i do support it so if we just sum the last line of each of the

4 parcels listed here. 3,800, 1,100, 397, and 49. It comes out to $5,483. Not all that much money. Thanks. Anybody else have any other questions for staff? I'm sorry. I don't understand 5,448. If you take each of the four parcels listed on the end of the third page and the last page, so we're talking parcels TCA 182, parcel TCA 221, parcel 2.

Are you saying all the McCown parcels or all the total parcels?

Some of them look similar, but if you look at the last couple of digits, they're actually different.

I know it's kind of a... Parcel 22602210100 is in here twice.

Text code area 182. That was the problem that she was explaining, that there's... It's across two different tax code areas.

Okay. So that's the same parcel, but two different tax relief. Okay. So you'll notice the last line of the bullets on each of those sections ends with a savings of, and it tells you how much tax saving is there. And if you add those up across those four parcels, that's how you come up with that $5,000 change.

Perfect. That's helpful. Thank you.

I think that's the number you wanted. So that's why I was trying to share it.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

And hindsight, it might have been better to just do Gardner.

Yeah. I think that this is a really great document to, you know, kind of give an overview of everything else. Obviously, our packets had a whole lot more information in it. But I appreciate you putting this together very much. Does anybody else have anything else for Marissa? Well, there's nothing else. We would certainly entertain a motion. You wouldn't happen to have any graph motion language that has all the right numbers on it, would you?

I'm sorry, what was that?

You wouldn't happen to have any proposed motion language that has good numbers on it, would you?

No, nothing other than what had been in my script, and we didn't get the script.

The script was attached to... Well, it was linked, but it is on the website. Yeah, I don't have to print it out. Just this.

If you've got it, Daniel, maybe you can make it.

That's why I asked for it. So having heard all public feedback, I would move to recommend approval of the classification of 33.37 and 155.2 acres of the gardener. Revapool Living Trust and McGowan Properties as open space land for current use assessment.

I second that.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion on this motion? Okay, I'll call for the vote. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

That sounds unanimous. This motion passes. Thank you. Thank you very much.

And I promise a smoother process next time around. No, I'm working fine.

A complicated thing to try and explain.

The only thing I might recommend is with the presentation is provide us a copy of the showing where the land's located within the county specifically. I know you did that when we had the meeting previous, but coming into the public hearing, it might.

for it yeah it has been quite a while yeah yeah they definitely know that we were originally planning on hearing this what in may and then it got bumped i think so yeah i think may 20th was originally planned on it again thank you very much thank you very much for your time all right well with that we're going to move on with our agenda and uh item number seven which would be staff updates with manager day but do you have to call the means to you call the hearing to a close officially yeah before our work session i missed it I don't remember. I didn't give you the gavel this time. That's it. I needed that with harsh cadence to trigger my mind to a previous conversation. Your phone does not like you today. It does not. Kids and their phones.

These darn millennials, man. I don't have any really big staff updates. I did mention last week or last meeting that we were going to present to the board on the net ecological gain framework that we've been working on with the Thurston Conservation District. We were able to give that presentation to the board, provide some information on the project. I don't know if folks caught it, but that project is moving along. But I just want to provide a follow-up on that. But other than that, I don't have any really big staff updates. I could answer questions if folks have them.

Okay. We're going to move on to the calendar. Our next meeting should be July 1st. Is there anybody that expects they won't be able to attend July 1st? How about July 15th would be our next meeting after that? Anybody expect not to be here July 15th?

I may not be here July 15th.

Okay, Commissioner Bartlett might be unavailable. I may not be either. For the 15th? Yeah.

Okay. I may also not be available. I will be out of town.

Very good. If we lose off time, please keep in touch with staff just in case we don't have a quorum. We could probably do an informational meeting, but we just wouldn't make any discussion or decisions.

That is a five Wednesday month, so we could possibly consider a reschedule on the 29th. Like, the 29th is not a bad day. Yeah, if we just moved in how what would noticing requirement we need for that on the first be a regular moving a regular meeting? I don't think you can move a regular meeting. I think you just call a special meeting. We'll cancel that one and call a special. What's the notice period for a special?

I don't know.

I don't think we need to cross that bridge yet. If on the 1st it's solidified and we're sure, that'd give us a month's notice, which I think is enough. Which gap analysis are we doing on the 15th?

We're going to race on the 15th.

Frequently flooded areas.

Oh yeah. Yeah. That can be some, that's why I was suggesting maybe if it, if on the first, it looks like we're not going to have quorum, then maybe we just had to schedule a special session for the 29th. We'll revisit that issue on the first. You hate more meetings.

I know, but I'm just like, there's only what 24 hours notice technically required for a special meeting that

sounds right so that would give us plenty of time yes yeah yeah get something i i figured worst case scenario it's like two weeks and we'd still be fine yeah we'd be fine okay well does anybody have anything for the good of the order i do go ahead commissioner so sorry on the meeting minutes i cannot remember earlier but i did find it and this is

Only I'm saying this because we're trying to better represent Mrs. Whitaker's presentation. But on page two, line 43, it says his, meaning me, other questions regarded Thurston County's best success and opportunity, status of beaver populations, and poison hemlock management. Mrs. Whitaker did not have answers for these, but referred to blah, blah, blah. I recall that Mrs. Whitaker had a great answer for the first one, which is to say we've got a wildlife corridor from the Cascades to the Olympics that we're a critical part of in Thurston County, and that's our great opportunity and success so far. So I would recommend adding that in there, but I know we already approved these, so that's what I was going to mention.

Those will be captured in this meeting's minutes. There you go. Yeah, it works. Does anybody else have anything for the good of the order?

Have a happy Pride, everyone. If you're out in the county, make sure you check out the one in Centralia. They've been working hard on it.

That's true.

That's fun.

All right.

Well, having no further business, this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.

Have a lovely day. Evening. It's not 8 o'clock yet. I need to call out more meetings. Built in time.