Tuesday, May 7 Deadline for written comments

From Colin Maycock, San Juan County Senior Planner

State law requires the County to update its Shoreline Master Plan (SMP) (RCW 90.58.080(2)(iv)), and Washington Administrative Code (WAC) chapter 173-26 sets forth the appropriate procedure for carrying out that update.

(To see previous article about the Shoreline Master Plan (SMP) progress, go to shoreline-master-plan-process-continues)

Beyond meeting State requirements, [County] staff approached the SMP update with the goal of retaining the existing regulations where possible, while simplifying and clarifying the development regulations that apply in the shoreline.

To achieve this, staff has reduced redundancies by eliminating or combining sections; by clarifying development requirements; by increasing the consistency in the use of terms; and by eliminating unnecessary sections such as specific shoreline districts for Shaw Island and Eastsound however, many of the differences that the subarea shoreline districts are retained.

The first part of a comparison between state requirements, the existing SMP and the proposed SMP update; https://www.sanjuanco.com/CDP/docs/SMP/Staff_Report_and_Code_Comparison-final-2013-05-03.pdf

A copy of the third version of the Shoreline Inventory and Characterization Report has been posted here: https://www.sanjuanco.com/smp/IandC_Files.aspx

In response to the 2nd draft of the I&C, citizens submitted descriptions of their property and their uses. The descriptions were added to the County’s GIS and mapped. The map and the descriptions shall be available shortly.

An online form will be available for citizens to send the County additional descriptions of their properties and how they use it.

As always, if you have any questions or comments please contact me at 360-370-7573 or by email at colinm@sanjuanco.com.

Written comments can also be submitted to PO Box 947, Friday Harbor, WA, 98250.