— from Greg Ayers, Chair, EPRC —
I want to make the community aware of important upcoming County Council events related to the Eastsound Subarea Plan.
After several years of work revising and updating the format of the Plan by the Eastsound Planning and Review Committee (EPRC), it is finally on the County Council’s 2015 docket. EPRC provided Council with the final draft 18 months ago.
The Planning Commission has reviewed it, and the Council has had an initial discussion of its contents. An important date is coming up next week; the public hearing at 10:15 am on December 8th at the Eastsound Fire Station is a critical time for the community to keep Council members Hughes, Jarman and Stephens on task. The community can provide input on the content of the Plan, and can also send a strong message to Council to keep their process moving forward. This Plan is scheduled for Council final action on December 15th.
If it is not approved then, the Plan will roll to the 2016 docket, inviting yet another year of delay. I look forward to joining a large community outpouring this coming week, as your support is critical to make sure that the project comes to fruition. The proposed ordinance can be found at www.sanjuanco.com/Council/PendingOrdinances.aspx.
On a similar but unrelated note, after three years, the Eastsound community has finally been provided with a detailed project plan from the County for the Prune Alley renovations. Fred Klein and others in the community have put in substantial work developing a new streetscape plan – along with gaining support from the affected property owners – so it is good to see the County begin to move it forward. It will be more satisfying for the community to see the project completed, hopefully in about three years. I recommend that you share your support for the project with Council through the public comment process, either in writing or in person at the meeting.
Lastly, I want to remind you that EPRC meets on the first Thursday of each month, at 3:00 pm at the Eastsound Fire Station. I encourage you to attend a meeting in the near future. I think you would find the topics of interest and relevance to you.
Should you have any comments, questions, or would like to receive the EPRC agenda electronically in the future, please contact me at ayersmd@yahoo.com.
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Greg, Thank you for this information. For those who have work conflicts or other obligations that prevent them from attending in person, is there a deadline for comments with regards to this meeting? In addition to sending emails to council members, should we cc you or anyone in particular on the EPRC?
Cathy, There is no deadline, comments can be provided up until the day of the December 8th hearing. I would recommend you sending them in earlier so that they make it into the county council package, usually prepared on the Friday before a meeting. On your emails to the council members you should cc Ingrid Gabriel (ingridg@sanjuanco.com, clerk of the council) and Colin Maycock (colinm@sanjuanco.com, the planner assigned to the project). Please also cc me if you would like and I can share with the rest of the EPRC members. Hope this helps. Please feel free to contact me at airspeed@yahoo.com if you have further questions.
Correction to the contact e-mail, it should be ayersmd@yahoo.com. Thanks, Greg
It SHOULD be delayed to the 2016 docket. All the EPRC and Council were supposed to do in 2015 was move the ESAP into the county UDC codes. EPRC and Colin Maycock did far more than that. Was the Public truly informed of what all changes in zoning and regulations mean. Absolutely not. This was the most un-transparent process – at the same time updating the SMP to fit the environmental abandoment of Eastsound Swale and protections under the SMP – while starting to re-write the Comprehensive Plan – Which you were not supposed to touch until the review in 2016. To pass this now – during holiday time – when the process has been so poorly managed – is insulting to those of us who call the UGA “home.”
I went to tonight’s Town Hall, and it was instructive. I’m hoping that the powerpoint presentation will be linked on the County website or Orcas issues – it will help people to make informed comment. I wish it had been better attended. I was not going to go – but thought that it is my civic duty as an involved citizen to attend and hear what was said. It doesn’t necessarily change my mind about anything, but it clarified things in a way that I can now make more informed and effective comment. So thank you, Rick Hughes, for doing something about Public concern about so many things happening at once -both SMP and ESAP. Although I often don’t see eye to eye with the decisions made by EPRC or DCD, I do recognize that they put a lot of work into this. My hope for the future is that we can have these town hall meetings at the beginning of changes, and have media backup to disseminate nuts and bolts information to the people; what do existing regs mean, why change them, and what the new changes mean – not just to individual homeowners but to us all.