The Board of Island County Commissioners met in Special Session on February 28, 2006 at 2:00 p.m. in the Island County Courthouse Annex, Hearing Room, 1 N. E. 6^th Street, Coupeville, Wa. Wm. L. McDowell, Chairman; William J. Byrd, Member, and Mike Shelton, Member, were present.

The purpose of the Special Session was for the Annual Joint Session with the Island County Planning Commission and Island County Hearing Examiner. The main topics of review and discussion include:

• Review of 2006 Work Plan
• Hearing Examiner Report

Mike Joselyn Ray Gabelein Bill Massey Val Hillers

Scott Yonkman Sheilah Crider Wayne Havens

ISLAND COUNTY HEARING EXAMINER: Michael Bobbink, Hearing Examiner

STAFF: Phil Bakke, Planning & Community Development Director

Jeff Tate, Assistant Planning & Community Development Director

Chairman McDowell called the meeting to order and turned it over to Mr. Bakke for presentation of the 2006 Work Plan. (GMA Record # 8664).

Mr. Bakke provided an overview of Comprehensive Plan Annual Review Amendments from 1999 to 2004. The 2005 Annual Review Docket included the following:

• Critical Areas Update
• WEAN Critical Areas Requests
• PRD Ordinance follow up
• Building size limitations for commercial RAIDs
• Industrial Development siting provisions
• Existing Master Planned Resorts
• Public Road Right-of Way segregations
• Population Projections and Allocations (carry forward from 2004)
• Urban Growth Areas (carry forward from 2004)
• Shoreline Amendment (carry forward from 2004 for Inventory and Assessment)

Residential building permits in 2005 totaled 710; other permits such as mechanical, plumbing, heating, additions, and commercial totaled 1708. Land use permits in 2005 totaled 428.

Projects for 2006 include:

• Continue the Critical Areas Update
• Develop and send out a request for proposal for a Permit Tracking System
• Complete Building process overhaul
• Enhance the GMA Record Data-Base, Scan Records and make them available to the public via the Internet
• Non-Residential Guide Book
• Development of Instructional Video’s

• January 1999 – May 2004, 78 public hearings conducted on the plan by the volunteer citizen advisory group.
• May 2004, citizen advisory group forwarded a draft plan recommending Freeland become an NMUGA.
• September 2004, staff conducted SEPA scoping for the plan and drafting an Environmental Impact Statement.
• October 2004 comments received on the scoping and waiting to complete the Storm Water Study.
• February 2005 Sewer Plan completed.
• May 2005 Storm Water Study completed.
• Environmental Impact Statement and Planning Commission Review pending & planned to be scheduled for review when the Planning Commission has completed the Critical Area Ordinance update process.

Ray Gabelein asked if there was a target date for when the Freeland Plan will come before the Planning Commission.

Phil Bakke indicated that the Planning Commission would address the Freeland Plan when they have come close to completion of their recommendations associated with the critical area update.

Commissioner Shelton said if the Freeland sewer plan gets adopted within the next couple of months putting off adoption of the Freeland Plan until next year would not be a very workable situation, and in retrospect, should have been adopted in 2004 when fresh in people’s minds.

Jeff Tate said what they need to do is find a window for the Planning Commission to devote some attention to the Freeland Plan and make sure there is some continuity to the whole process. All of the Freeland Sub-Area Planning Committee meetings were held in Freeland and ideally the Planning Commission meetings should be held in Freeland as well.

• County’s AG-BMP’s for Rural land found non-compliant by Court of Appeals and in 2005 the Supreme Court declined the case;
• Agricultural hearings held in the Spring of 2005 – Public outcry to not impose critical area ordinances on existing agriculture in any zone;
• Board appointed an 18-member agricultural committee who made formal recommendations;
• County combined the agricultural remand with the critical area ordinance update to perform a comprehensive update of the agricultural provisions;
• Regional informational meetings and Planning Commission hearings held in the summer and fall of 2005 with a recommendation being forwarded to the Board;
• Board is holding Public Hearings on the agricultural provisions and considering a coordinated county wide Water Quality Monitoring Program.

• Two parcel specific zone changes
• Navy AICUZ
• Public Road Right-of-Way segregations
• WEAN Critical Areas Request (carry forward from 2005)
• Population projections and allocations (carry forward from 2004)
• Urban Growth Areas (carry forward from 2004)
• Shoreline Amendment (carry forward from 2004 for inventory and assessment)
• Stanwood/Camano School District Capital Facilities Plan (proposing a process for establishing impact fees for future development)

• Contracted with Keith Dearborn for legal and consulting services; Dr. Paul Adamus as lead critical area ordinance update scientist; Dr. Don Stevens, biological statistician; and Dr. Joe Eilers as the water sampling and testing specialist.
• Two peer review groups have been established; one an agency group with representatives from CTED, WDFW, DOE, and the Department of Agriculture; the second group is made up of private sector critical areas experts from Pierce County and Adolfson and Associates.
• Contracted with Geo-Engineers to evaluate Geologically Hazardous areas
• Working together with Health, Public Works, Conservation Districts, WSU
• Planning Staff: Jeff Tate, assistant Director and update lead; Joe Burcar, Senior Planner, Project level leader, Mike Kershner, John Coleman and Anthony Boscolo, Assistant Planners, GIS and policy development, Kirsten Harma, Assistant Planner/Biologist, also helping launch the water quality program.
• Pam Dill and Edie Elerick will jointly coordinate support services.
• Each of the current planning staff members will be assigned special projects.
• In 2005, had four graduate students and summer interns to assist in data collection and GIS development and permitting.

• Critical Area ICC 17.02 updated

Mr. Bakke noted that the Board adopted Resolution #C-11-06 revising Track 3 to amend the schedule for review and update of the wetland policies and regulations, putting in place a fairly intensive meeting schedule on the part of the Planning Commission and Board of County Commissioners. There has been some discussion between Planning staff and the consultants about whether or not that schedule is achievable. One of the concerns is how to get the community involved in this update process with such a tight schedule.

Michael Bobbink commented this would be his 17^th year as the Hearing Examiner for Island County. His workload in 2005 increased substantially after a couple of fairly slow years. The Hearing Examiner deals mostly with appeals and major development permits which is an outgrowth of the County building more discretion into the land use process and allowing more decisions to be made administratively.

Wayne Havens asked for an update on the motel/cultural center situation on Camano Island.

Mr. Bobbink noted that he made a decision on a number of issues and then remanded it back to Planning staff for further processing; he was not aware what has happened since then. The idea of permitting cultural centers with associated housing with no definition of what that might be has been very difficult. There has been a lot of public input and concern. More people showed up for the hearing on this issue than he has seen in the 20 years he has been doing this for various jurisdictions.

There have been at least 4 appeals on this issue from the same appellant in the last year and it has created quite a bit of work and controversy. All of those decisions are available to the public through the Hearing Examiner’s office. The public can also contact Planning staff to see if the appellant is still moving forward with the proposal.

Chairman McDowell said although it would not have an affect on the current applicant, suggested it might be wise to add to the work plan the issue of overnight associated lodging.

Phil Bakke said staff has not had the impression that there are any other people out there or any other questions being generated on the issue of overnight lodging associated with a cultural center.

Mr. Bobbink agreed this probably would not be a long term problem because there are very few people willing to build a cultural center in order to have a motel. This really grew out of someone wanting a use that ultimately was determined not to be available in the zone and then finding this as means of getting there. He also could not picture a viable cultural center without a non-profit or governmental backing. The Planning Department may want to address exactly what zones are appropriate for overnight lodging and whether or not any changes need to be made.

Wm. L. McDowell, Chairman

William J. Byrd, Member

Mike Shelton, Member

ATTEST: Elaine Marlow

Clerk of the Board