Growth issues get real in Eastsound, but new VR regs in limbo

||| BY MATTHEW GILBERT, ORCASONIAN OP/ED REPORTER ||||

Last week’s monthly EPRC meeting headlined Department of Community Development (DCD) planner Adam Zack, along with DCD Director Erika Shook, who updated the commissioners on the county’s recently completed Land Capacity Analysis (LCA). The results, and assumptions supporting it, are critical to Eastsound’s path forward as it plans for future growth and meeting Growth Management Act (GMA) requirements to show it can accommodate 50 percent of all residential and commercial increases over the next 20 years.

So far, reporting on the county’s Comprehensive Plan (CP) – our local interpretation of GMA’s intent – remains an exercise in abstraction. These are still essentially policy discussions and connecting the dots to actual or anticipated impacts is hard to do. The emphasis, as Zack explained it, is on seeking “internal consistency and shared assumptions, ultimately leading to (where needed) specific development codes.”

The question for Eastsound’s Urban Growth Area (UGA) is whether it has enough capacity to fit in everything the CP forecasts for it. On the ground it means looking at maps, zoning, current development, possible re-zoning, and what is and isn’t developable going forward. That also means anticipating infrastructure needs such as road additions or service capacity such as water. As an example, Zack used the current April’s Grove development: “What happens to an intersection if you add 100 more cars to it?” Or if you plop a high-density residential development on a hill, will you be able to get water to it?

There have also been a handful of redesignation requests, including “Village Commercial” for the wooded Victory Hill parcel and a “mixed-use” permit for the southwest corner of the airport property which currently contains Orcas Family Health Center among other businesses. All of this will be shape-shifting the Eastsound UGA for years to come.

Zack asserted at the outset that expanding the boundaries of the UGA to handle future growth is “a last resort. We are focusing on infill.” Given that, the value of the meeting was to start a real, map-driven conversation on what and where and how such growth would occur. It became pretty clear, pretty quickly, though, that theory and practice would not align easily. For Eastsound to meet GMA/CP requirements, “a lot will have to happen,” said Zack. Case in point: A builder in the audience lamented that current regulations and code limitations are working against his attempt to be part of that infill solution. Zack anticipates that Eastsound is looking at a 6- to 8-month process of discussion, scenario-building, and public input before final zoning and code changes are approved.

Another issue concerned county assumptions behind the impacts of recreational housing (VRs, vacation homes, etc.) on residential housing inventory. Based on historical records of 10+ years, the county is applying a 35% “recreational discount” (i.e., I in 3 residential units) to potentially available long-term residential capacity along with a “market factor” of 25%. Local architect John Campbell pointed out that if you look at the last few years, the proportion has actually been flipped, with significantly more recreational units coming online in the UGA than residential ones. “They may legally be residential,” he said, “but they are being used predominantly as recreational.”

Even though the rate of county vacation rental permits per new residential dwelling units has been going up (especially in Eastsound), Zack argued that the recent VR “building boom” is an anomaly given the strong economy. Still, the EPRC has recommended 47% as a more realistic compromise. There is also the fact that while the UGA is being “designed” to accommodate 50% of all future growth (to help preserve “rural character”), market forces will likely redistribute as much as half of that to those same rural areas, impacts to be determined.

The Vacation Rental Conundrum

The VR issue has certainly been front and center since Orcas Island’s so-called “Working Group” brought their impacts to public attention. There have been several well-attended public meetings on Orcas as well as recent gatherings on Lopez and San Juan. There is clearly interest in motivating the county to respond, which could take several forms:

• Incorporating policy guidelines into the Comp Plan.
• Adding specific updates to the current VR ordinance.
• Establishing a moratorium with the explicit intent of enacting new regulations within a set period of time.

At the January EPRC meeting, Orcas Commissioner Rick Hughes reported that VR regulations would be considered at an upcoming County Council retreat agenda, though he emphasized that current thinking was tilting in favor of adding land use regulations to the Comp Plan and/or updating the current ordinance. “A moratorium would consume a lot more staff time, might take longer, and it would slow down the Comp Plan update.”

[Note: Go here to read how Washington State legally describes a moratorium.]

At the recent February EPRC meeting, commissioner Charles Toxey asked DCD Director Erika Shook where the county stood on the issue. She reported that the County is still analyzing the results of its permit compliance efforts and hopefully will present their findings in March. That information, she said, will provide a clearer picture of where things stand. When asked more specifically (by this reporter) to speculate on a likely timetable for when actual regulations would be enacted, she replied that “We may be able to get something done in six months, but likely a year or longer depending on what they are.” That’s if they started now, but she echoed Hughes is stating that the demands of the Comp Plan take priority. As for a moratorium, “It would legally obligate us to divert scarce resources from that process.” The recent marijuana moratorium was different, she explained, since the county had no regulations and needed to respond, “and we had to drop everything to do that.”

The best-case scenario, based on what is known or can be surmised, suggests that new regulations will not be addressed until the CP is near completion – up to a year or more down the road – and then however many months (or years?) after that.

In their absence, it seems the county is willing (or forced) to rely on a strategy of natural attrition: As Shook further explained while counseling patience, the compliance analysis will likely cause some permit holders not to renew and show other units as essentially offline, neutralizing the impact of new applications. A stand-off, as it were. But this current effort is likely a one-time scrub, and it remains to be seen what happens next. As the Vacation Rental Working Group has re-framed the issue, “It’s not about the number, but about the pain.”

Since it isn’t incorporated like its neighbor on San Juan, Eastsound is not in control of its destiny. However, the planning department has pledged to regularly attend the EPRC’s monthly meetings, which as time goes on will become an epicenter of conversation over Eastsound’s future. For information on upcoming meetings, go here.