Planning Commission Wednesday meeting rescheduled; will consider Housing in Comprehensive Plan

(The Planning Commission’s Dec. 17 meeting agenda will be addressed on Jan. 16 meeting. )
The Planning Commission was scheduled to meet Wednesday, Dec. 17, beginning at 8:30 a.m. at San Juan County Fire District #3, 1011 Mullis Street, in Friday Harbor. Administrative Items to be included are:
Update from Chair, Bob Gamble;
Update from Ron Henrickson;
Update from Housing Bank Subcommittee;
Update from Marine Resources Committee;
Approval of Minutes – November 21, 2008.
A Public hearing and deliberations to consider the proposed update of the
San Juan County Comprehensive Plan Housing Element and Appendix 5 will take place at the meeting, as well as a continued public hearing for deliberations only on proposed amendments to the Unified Development Code (UDC) and Appendix 2 of the
Comprehensive Plan to allow for Essential Public Facilities (EPFs).

Essential Public Facilities

At the Eastsound Planning Review Committee (EPRC) meeting in October, where the EPFs were reviewed, EPRC member Gulliver Rankin commented that stormwater facilities were not included in the proposal and questioned why stormwater detention treatment was not considered an essential public facility.
EPRC member Audrey Moreland brought out that certain roadways and bridges should be considered as essential public facilities, considering that, in an emergency such as an earthquake, the destruction or inaccessibility of bridges such as the Moran Park bridge and the Channel Road bridge would make parts of the island unreachable.
County Public Works Director Jon Shannon said at the EPRC meeting that the policy objective of the ordinance is to outline the broad context, but it does not address the shoreline where many EPFs are located and it provides siting standards for only one type of facility.
For further information on EPFs contact Shireene Hale at 370-7569 or shireeneh@san-juan.wa.us.

Affordable Housing

Senior County Planner Colin Maycock has been updating the housing element in the Comprehensive Plan this fall. The housing element is based on the Housing Needs Assessment originally completed in 1999, based on 1990 census data. At the October EPRC meeting, Maycock noted that the housing element is not a big section of the Comprehensive Plan.
A roundtable of affordable housing advocates met with Maycock on Oct. 15, at the Lopez Community Land Trust (LCLT) offices on Lopez Island,to review the goals and policies of the housing component of the county Comprehensive Plan.(see summary of the meeting below.)
A Dec. 31 deadline has been extended into 2009, in order that the county can hold public hearings such as the one scheduled for Dec. 17, in order to update the housing component, following the legal settlement of a challenge by John Campbell, Orcas Island architect and board member of Homes for Islanders.
Campbell contested an earlier approval of the first phase of expansion of the Friday Harbor urban growth area as a means of forcing the county to produce the updates. Counties like San Juan that plan under the state Growth Management Act (GMA) must periodically update portions of their comprehensive plans.
Maycock is tasked with revising the county’s Housing Needs Assessment to assist in the review of the Housing element of the comp plan.

Affordable Housing Review at Lopez Community Land Trust Common Ground offices

The Executive Summary of the Housing Needs Assessment’s most recent draft states, “The primary elements of the housing needs equation are: population projections, building land and affordability.”
Projections of 2005 still hold, Maycock said at the Oct. 15 meeting: the population of the county is estimated to reach about 24,000 by 2030, and will require approximately 11,287 dwelling units. 2005 housing figures show that there were about 10,650 dwelling units; so for the next 22 years, “the County would need to provide sites for a further 378 units or approximately 17 units per year.”
Building land availability “appears… to meet the potential long-term demand for housing. Such a statement must be qualified with a consideration of the provision of housing affordable to members of the community earning something in the vicinity of the area median income, or, as is commonly the case for those working in the county, something considerably lower,” the assessment summary read.
The Affordability of Housing section of the summary states, “As recently as 2000, a person or family earning close to the area median income could afford to buy a house in the County. Since then … it has become almost utterly impossible for wage and salary earners in the county to afford to purchase a home here.”
In 2000, the median county income was $53,900, and the median home price was $250,000. in 2004, those figures were $60,100 and $337,000. In 2007, the median income was $61,600, while the median home price was $563,300.
Karin Agosta of the county Planning commission, Bill Agosta of the Housing Bank Commission, Sandy Bishop, Executive Director of the Lopez Community Land Trust, Nancy DeVaux of the county Home Trust, Carrie Lacher of the Friday Harbor Town Council, Angie Lausch, county Affordable Housing Coordinator, Patty Miller of the Eastsound Planning Review Committee and Barbara Thomas of the county Planning Commission were in attendance at the Oct. 10 meeting at LCLT.
The group analyzed section 5.2 of the Comp Plan, “the housing element,” point by point to clarify the policies for achieving the stated goal: “To make adequate provision for a variety of housing choices in terms of type, cost, size, design, and suitability for various households including families, the elderly, the disabled, and housing for very low-, low-, and moderate-income ranges while recognizing the unique physical, social, and economic environment of the islands.”
Karin Agosta mentioned that because implementation of the comprehensive plan comes through the county’s development codes, it’s important that the goals, policies and philosophies are clearly enunciated in the Comp Plan. “This [document] sets the principles to be enforced by the Uniform Development Code (UDC),” said Agosta.
Revisions agreed upon in the LCLT discussion were to be incorporated by Maycock as he re-drafts the document.

Also on the agenda for Dec. 17 is a noon break, time approximate for lunch, with reconvening at 1 p.m., time approximate depending on lunch break, continuation of any hearing or workshop, if necessary, and adjournment to take place when agenda items have been completed or continued.