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List of stories about Growth Management Act in San Juan County

Workshop Scheduled for Village and Hamlet Plans

posted 04/27/01
Village and hamlet planning is high on the County Planning Department’s list of priorities for the year 2001. A community workshop to introduce the village and hamlet planning program and obtain community input for local plans will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, May 17,at the Madrona Room in the Eastsound Community Center . The meeting will focus on plans to be developed for Deer Harbor, West Sound, Orcas Village, Olga and Doe Bay.

Under the County’s Comprehensive Plan, these five areas are simply designated as " Activity Centers." Residential densities are established within the activity centers, but internal designations for land uses other than residential use have not been identified. Commercial uses are permitted in villages and hamlets by the Comprehensive Plan, so under the County’s interim development standards for activity centers, commercial development applications are being accepted by the County for parcels anywhere within activity centers until plans are adopted.

The plans to be prepared for each activity center will identify the appropriate locations in each village and hamlet for various land uses based on the unique conditions and requirements that apply there. Goals, specific land use districts, and development guidelines appropriate to each will be established based on this meeting and later meetings to be held in each activity center.

An information packet providing background information on each of the activity centers will be available at the workshop. After the workshop, information packets may be obtained by request from the Planning Department, 360.378.2393. Maps showing the boundaries and density designations for each hamlet are available on the County’s Web site.

The planning effort for the County’s rural activity centers was suspended in 1999 so the planning staff could prepare the County’s response to the appeal of the Comprehensive Plan to the Growth Management Hearings Board. Now that the County’s case is complete and the hearing has been held before the Growth Management Hearings Board, planning staff is available to continue the activity center planning program.

For further information, contact Pat Mann, Senior Planner, at the San Juan County Planning Department, 360.378.2393.

Villages become Urban Growth Areas

posted 08/19/00
The county's response to the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board order is ready for one final round of public hearings.

The response must be turned into the hearings board by October 16, 2000.

Four areas of the county's comprehensive plan adopted December 20, 1998 were found to be either invalid or out of compliance with the growth management act. Parts of the comp plan dealing with housing, guest houses, Areas of Intense Rural Development (AMIRDs) boundaries, and density had to be reworked.

The county's proposed changes include:

Density reductions

All rural lands with densities higher than one unit per five acres (except for land designated as resource or activity centers) will be reduced to one unit per five acres. On Turn Point/Pear Point on San Juan Island some of the density will be further reduced to one unit per ten acres.

Any Agricultural Resource land currently designated higher than one unit per 10 acres will be reduced to one unit per ten acres.

The BOCC has decided that Agricultural Resource land in areas ranked high as an open space resource, density bonuses would be offered. One unit per five acres would be allowed on 40 acre parcels as long as 80 percent of the parcel remained as undivided open space.

Revisions involving Forest Resource Land are similar to the Ag land rules. Forest Resource land higher than one unit per 20 acres would be reduced to one unit per 20 acres. Density bonuses would be available for parcels 80 acres or larger in sensitive open space areas.

Housing

Target numbers for the county's needs for the next 20 years were developed. As a result of the staff's analysis strategies to encourage affordable housing were added.

They include:

• development of a locally funded housing trust
  
  
• affordable cluster housing in rural areas
  
  
• conservation of existing affordable housing units
  
  
• support of development and enhancement of utility systems in growth areas.

Guest houses

County staff analyzed the proportion of guest houses to existing single-family homes.

"An extrapolation was made to determine what percentage of future residences would be expected to also have new guest house units. Based on that analysis, the Board of County Commissioners determined that the effect of guest house provisions adopted in the 1998 Plan and the UDC would not have an appreciable impact on rural densities and would remain unchanged."

AMIRDs

Under the revised plan:

Lopez Village and Eastsound were changed to Urban Growth Areas. They were called Village Activity Centers under the 1998 comp plan.

Islandale and Doe Bay will no longer be hamlets.

The areas around Roche Harbor Resort and Rosario Resort will become Residential Activity Centers.

No new residential development would be allowed in the areas designated Island Centers on Lopez and Orcas.

Boundaries for the areas of more intense rural development in Deer Harbor, Westsound, Orcas Village, and Olga were modified.

Areas north of Roche Harbor Resort on San Juan Island and an area north of Rosario Resort on Orcas Island were redesignated Residential Activity Centers.

Maps and more details are available on the county's Web site.

Changes to the
Comp Plan Released

posted 08/17/00

The complete report is available on the county's Web site.

Copies are also available at the libraries, and the Planning Department.