ISLAND COUNTY COMMISSIONERS – MINUTES OF MEETING
SPECIAL SESSION – FEBRUARY 25, 2003
The Board of Island County Commissioners met in
Special Session on Tuesday, February 25,
beginning at 10:15 a.m. in the
Coupeville Recreation Hall, 901 NW Alexander Street, Coupeville, Washington,
following the Island County Planning
Commission which met at 9:00 a.m. The meeting
was called for the purpose of a
Joint Session of the Board of Island County Commissioners, Island County Planning Commission and the Island County Hearing
Examiner. The main topics of review and discussion included: Review of 2002
Annual Review Docket; Review of 2003 Annual Review Docket; Hearing Examiner
Report; and General Discussion.
Attendance:
County Commissioners: Wm. L. McDowell, Chair; William F. Byrd, Member; Mike Shelton, Member
Hearing Examiner: Michael Bobbink, Island County
Hearing Examiner
Planning Commission: Dave Baumchen, Mike Joselyn, John Edison, Dave Osterberg, Henry
Powers
Staff: Phil Bakke, Planning
Dir.; Jeff Tate, Assistant Dir.;
Joe Burcar, Planner
Handouts:
Annual Review Amendments from 1998-2002 (GMA Record #7382)
2003 Annual Review Docket (GMA Record #7389)
Freeland Area Comprehensive Sewer Plan
–Collection System,
February 8, 2003, Tetra Tech/KCM (GMA Record
#7380)
Questionnaire February 8, 2003 Workshop (GMA
Record #7378)
Substantive Annual Review
Amendments 1998-2002
Mr. Bakke and
Mr. Tate reviewed all substantive annual review amendments,
Resolutions and Ordinances 1998 – 2002
[hand-out]
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2003 Annual Review Docket
The 2003 Annual Review docket consists of the following applications:
Ø Inoperable
Vehicle Ordinance
Ø Building Code
Enforcement Standards
Ø Composting/Grinding
Ø Concurrency
Standard Update
Ø Road Standard
Update – private access roads
Ø Open Space
Requirements (whether or not the requirement for open space is legal given the
density bonuses that have been received by the landowner)
Ø Historical
Advisory Committee standards
Ø Five Year
Review Procedures
·
PRDs
·
NR Zone - Design
Standards, Sign Code, Zero Lot Line Setback
·
Best Management Practices (BMPs)
·
Earned Development Units
·
Guest Cottage Program
·
Special Review District Program
In
response to an inquiry from Mr. Osterberg as
to what standards that would be used for the Five Year Review, Mr. Tate
noted that with all the programs they would be looking at the frequency
and performance of the use. There are goals and policies set up for why
these programs are in place and what
they are trying to achieve. They will be looking at projects that were done to
see if the finished product achieved the goals and policies that were
intended. For example, with programs
that have not been used, such as Earned
Development Units, they are contacting
farmers around the community who had an interest during the development stage
to inquire why no one is using the program.
Staff wants to make sure that
they are not establishing barriers that can easily be fixed so people will use
the program. Also they will be talking
to developers who offered input during the development of the PRD ordinance to
find out why they used the PRD route but not since. They are not necessarily bringing this forward to recommend a
code change but to have a discussion and then take some steps to see if there
are any changes that need to occur.
Commissioner
Shelton’s assumption was that the items listed under the Five Year Review, PRDs
through Special Review Districts, were just the beginning of the list and not
the exhaustive list.
Mr. Bakke indicated this was the beginning of
the process for what is now the Seven-year update. The basic approach will be to
try to review the Comprehensive Plan and implementing regulations in
anticipation of the seven year review a little more incrementally. One of the
items worked on last year was the Public Benefit Rating System. The review is
supposed to be completed by December 31, 2005.
Mr. Tate noted the review had been broken out
into three general categories: (1) this year review of the programmatic elements of the Comprehensive
Plan and Development Regulations; (2)
population projections and UGA boundaries; and (3) incorporating Best Available Science into
the Critical Area Regulations.
FREELAND SUB-AREA PLAN
Mr. Bakke recalled that the Board had
previously executed a professional
services contract with Tetra Tech/KCM to do a Comprehensive Sewer Study and
Facilities Plan for the Freeland sub-area. The plan is broken down into several
components: type of collection system; treatment
system; and discharge system. Once
those decisions have been made they can move into the design stage. Tetra
Tech/KCM’s contract also includes a fair amount of work on funding
alternatives. This venture is being
done cooperatively between the County and the Freeland Water District. The
County is providing up-front funding,
with the Freeland Water District obligated to refund the dollars spent
on the study in the event that in the next 20 years the plan is used and the
system is developed. The first stage
was completed three weeks’ ago with a public workshop on the three collection
system alternatives, gravity system, septic tank effluent pumping or STEP
system or a combination of the two.
Following the public workshop the subarea committee met and voted to
recommend the STEP system. The
implementation costs shown on the graph assume that every single house will
have to replace their septic tank and do not take into account the modern
facilities that private homeowners have been putting in over the last ten
years. Last summer Planning staff
presented the subarea committee with a draft Freeland Comprehensive Plan. That
plan has been updated significantly and will be re-presented to the committee
on March 13 for consideration. The purpose is to try to move the process along
so the plan can be adopted and move on to the Planning Commission and Board of
County Commissioners and some firm decisions can be made as to whether or not
the classification for Freeland will change from a RAID to a NMUGA.
Joe
Burcar reviewed results of the
questionnaire from a February 8, 2003 public workshop. They
received 51 questionnaires. One
of the questions asked was: “How do
you feel about sewers in Freeland?” and the
majority response was strongly in favor of sewers; close behind that
people said it depended on the cost.
He gave a GIS presentation that
included single family residential, new
construction, new manufactured homes and new mobile home permit activity and
graphics showing where development is
occurring in the County year by year since 1998. This presentation included information that was gleaned from the
Assessor’s database and uplinking the Building Permit database and the Land Use
Permit database.
Mr. Osterberg
asked whether the information could be
tied in with information provided by the County hydrologist. Mr.
Burcar noted that the hydrology information could be overlayed.
Mr. Bakke noted that the information for the
graphics presented was originally prepared leading up to the 1998 code. Doug
Kelly, the County Hydrologist, spent a fair amount of time with the Board and
Planning Commission reviewing areas, particularly on Camano, that had some
impact from salt water intrusion. Based on that information the Health Department
came forward with recommendations to the Board to eliminate development
potential in those areas.
Mr. Osterberg
has some concern that existing
property owners’ water was being
jeopardized by decisions they are not fully informed about.
Commissioner
Shelton pointed out that Island County
had made more strides in the last five
year than in previous history in
understanding the County’s water
resources, and commented that Doug
Kelly was largely responsible for that.
He thought the County would move
forward fairly dramatically, maybe not Island wide, but at least within those
watersheds where development is more intense.
Commissioner
McDowell commented that the County has
new policies and codes for the areas that have saltwater intrusion. Those areas
have to meet a higher level of requirements before they can drill a well.
HEARING EXAMINER REPORT
Mr.
Bobbink noted that his workload remains
moderate. Most hearings are appeals
of administrative decisions that deal
with neighborhood issues. The political aspect of the job, which went on for
about ten years with the completion of growth management, has pretty much
disappeared. He is not getting people who are using the process for political
reasons, rather people using it because they are concerned about
what is going on next door. Sometimes
these are very complicated issues and
raise some significant legal issues as well as factual issues. Basically the way the code tiers out the
kinds of decisions it eliminates from the Hearing Examiner and public review
process a lot of things that had no controversy attached to them and did not
need to go through that process. Presumably the decision to place the
regulatory process mostly at the administrative level has made those decisions
come out more quickly and less expensively.
Mr. Bobbink has been the Island County Hearing Examiner for approximately 15 years, and observed that
things had really changed in Island County during that time; the process is
much different; partly related to requirements of growth management, part related to
decisions made by the Board in simplifying the process and made it easier for people to get permits for
activities that should be permitted and to do that more quickly.
A
couple of the things that staff recommended in the 2003 Annual Review are
things Mr. Bobbink has had some
experience with. Some of the most complicated hearings have been
where people have collected junk on
single family lots with adverse effect on
neighbors; not operating a commercial
junkyard but could not seem to let
go of anything. The way the code is currently written makes it
very cumbersome to
deal
with that kind of situation and agreed
a new ordinance is needed. He was aware that composting had been a real problem in Whatcom County, and
there are a lot of different kinds of
composting, some of them have very significant impact on neighboring property
owners and some do not. People tend to
view them all as being very intrusive and are concerned about
impacts. Composting of lawn waste, etc.
can be done in such a way, with modern technology, that it so as not to have those kinds of impact.
Composting of chicken manure and other things to make a mushroom growing
substrate is an issue in Whatcom County. A lot of Canadian mushroom farms are
trying to get composting done in Whatcom County because the regulations in
British Columbia are so strict and those kinds of operations have great odor
problems and create a lot of public animosity. He felt it was worth looking at these
kinds of operations ahead of time because the mushroom farmers were regulated
out of British Columbia and are now being regulated out of Whatcom County and
will be looking for someplace where the regulations are not in place yet.
Commissioner
Shelton noted that it is becoming more and more difficult to get rid of yard waste. The Health Department now says
if you burn yard waste/brush you need
to be permitted as a solid waste
facility. Clearly there is a push towards stopping burning altogether and the
next step is some kind of chipping process, etc. While the County would not want to encourage people to make mushroom soil with chicken manure, the
composting business is needed and regulations need to be in place.
Mr.
Bobbink had seen very little Type III
development in the County, partly due
to infilling and partly because more
and more of these subdivisions have been put inside the city limits. Some growth
may take place outside RAIDs and perhaps in the Freeland area after the planning
has been completed and the services are made available.
Commissioner
Shelton pointed out that the PRD ordinance
in place now is worthless because it does not provide enough incentives and there simply is no place in the
County to do a long plat.
Mr. Bobbink said there may be areas where there
are a significant number of
pre-existing buildable lots that under growth management could be developed, but it also may be an area
where the water resource is not any good and therefore makes them almost
unbuildable. Some kind of program that would transfer those densities into an
area that could be better served might be something that would be
successful. He asked if staff was able
to provide an inventory of existing lots that were not buildable.
Mr. Tate
answered that they had tried to quantify that by looking at septic
denials but lots many people do not want to put a septic denial on their lot so
they may know it is unbuildable but the County would not.
Mr.
Osberberg noted that TDR’s work best
when a city is willing to take on the
density. Commissioner Shelton noted
that the only way development rights ever seem to work is if government creates
an artificial market for them.
Commissioner
McDowell encouraged the Planning Commission to approach the Five-Year Review
process, not as an opportunity to build a whole new code, but from the
direction of whether it is meeting the goals that were established.
PUBLIC COMMENT
Rufus
Rose, South Whidbey, asked if the
Board was monitoring proposed legislation concerning land use and
the GMA, and if so, if they had any
comments about those pieces of proposed legislation.
Commissioner
Shelton, who is a member of the
Washington State Association of Counties, and serves on the WSAC Legislative Steering Committee, commented
that there were vast numbers of bills
that have been proposed and people tend to devote their time more to those
issues that really have a chance of becoming law. There does not seem to be a lot of support from both large and
small counties for hearings boards, their decisions, and acquiescence to local
elected officials.
Commissioner
McDowell said that if a bill makes it out of committee and it is a law that
affects the County obviously the Commissioners need to be aware of it.
Commissioner
Shelton felt that the big target this year in the State Legislature was not so much growth management, as it is
Fish & Wildlife. One of the Washington
State Department of Fish & Wildlife’s proposals is to pull all of the tidegates out in Skagit
County. For years the farmers have used elaborate drainage systems where the
water drains down when the tide is out, the gate opens and the water drains out
of their agricultural fields. Removal of those tidegates would in essence cause
the saltwater to come back up all those drainage systems and revert all of the
Skagit flats to a saltwater marsh condition.
Mr.
Rose asked about what was left to be accomplished to complete the Forest
Practices changes. In response,
Mr. Bakke noted that the Department of
Natural Resources (DNR) current standards require meeting or exceeding existing standards. DNR does not have Forest Practice Standards to deal with
converting land to residential uses; DNR’s
standards are for maintenance and ongoing forestry for the most part.
That standard that was set by the Legislature is now being looked at and
targeted for
amendment. The second issue is that in order for
Island County to take over the program the County must adopt the method DNR uses to classify
streams. However DNR has not completed their work, and have not produced a map that says what the
streams are they have just produced the standards that need to be applied.
Commissioner
Shelton noted that the obvious answer for Island County and what they have
tried to convince DNR to do is when forest land is converted it becomes subject
to Island County’s critical area regulations.
Meeting
adjourned at 11:31 a.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
ISLAND COUNTY, WASHINGTON
______________________________
Wm. L. McDowell, Chairman
_____________________________
William J. Byrd, Member
_____________________________
Mike Shelton, Member
ATTEST: _______________________
Elaine Marlow, Clerk of the Board