Planning Commission holds seven-hour briefing on parts of draft Comp Plan

— by Steve Bernheim, Orcas Issues reporter —

Friday’s marathon Planning Commission meeting started at 8:30 in
the morning and finally wound up seven hours later at 3:30 pm only halfway through the agenda. At the end of the day, few decisions had been made, but commission members had emphasized the importance of rural
character in nearly every aspect of San Juan County’s delayed comprehensive planning process now going on for the twenty year period that began in 2016.

First, the Staff briefed the Commission on the county’s six-year
Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) which lists the county’s upcoming
transportation projects, many of which have been delayed by the COVID
pandemic. How to protect rural character and how engineering standards
for the various transportation projects took rural character into account so
that they didn’t chop down too many trees or install too many hard curbs
were the main topics of conversation. The county engineer invited the
Commission members to inspect any ongoing or future project with any
concerns about protecting rural character.

Commission David Kane supported the county’s plans to install mooring buoys in order to protect sensitive eel grass beds from anchored boats. The County Council will review the TIP at its August meeting and hold a public hearing on which of the proposed projects will be included in the final TIP to be adopted later this year.

Staff next set out to brief the Commission on the current draft Transportation Element of the Comprehensive Plan draft. There was talk about the future of intersection congestion and protecting the islands’ rural character from unnecessary four-way stop signs and unwanted developer-
funded road improvements, and discussion of protecting road use for farm
equipment and farm animals when necessary.

In response to public comments, staff included additional goals and policies related to global warming, including encouraging telecommuting, electric vehicle charging stations, and some measure of effort to try to provide alternatives to single occupancy gas powered vehicles, issues which the County Council is also currently planning to address in a comprehensive Climate Change resolution coming up soon. There was talk about the possibility of closing Crescent Beach Road when the sea level rises high enough between now and 2036.

Plans to develop an international port of entry on Lopez or Orcas Island are scrapped. Commission members expressed their opposition to “mass transit” solutions and to “driverless vehicles,” both of which they said were unnecessary in San Juan County and inconsistent with rural character. There was talk of how to ask Washington State Ferries to limit expansion of ferry service if county residents want to limit the number of arriving tourists.

The Commission agreed that the comprehensive plan should include no goal that special or additional funds should be used to fund clean transportation initiatives to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Then, after agreeing that standards of rural character should be included as part of the County’s future road design, the Commission broke for lunch.

When the meeting re-convened in the afternoon, Staff briefed the Commission on the current draft of the rural character section of the draft
comprehensive plan. There was discussion of how rural San Juan County
can have “urban” growth areas at all and how residents want to preserve a
“rural” character even within the boundaries of Friday Harbor and
Eastsound. In the end, the commission members were unable to suggest
any substantial revisions to the county code’s current definition of “Rural
Character” at SJCC 19.20.180.

The Commission devoted the remaining hour of the meeting to
discussion of the Staff’s recommendations on limited expansion of
farmworker housing. Staff will return next month with some revisions to its
suggestions. After seven hours, the commission adjourned, promising to
return next month to discuss the Staff’s current drafts of the comprehensive
plan land use sections on vacation rentals, specifically examining whether the number of vacation rentals should be limited and if so, how. Next month the staff also plans to continue briefing the commission on the current comprehensive plan drafts for accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and rural cluster development.

During public comment, several members of the public said they
would be working together in light of the COVID pandemic to revise the
County’s “Vision Statement” adopted in June 2018. They said they would propose a new vision statement to the Planning Commission at its next meeting.