Representatives from Thurston County’s Community Planning & Economic Development (CPED) office reviewed the 2023 comprehensive plan amendments scheduled for action on November 28.
CPED Senior Planner Maya Teeple led the discussion and reported the latest version of the comprehensive plan.
The county amends the plan on an annual basis. These are optional amendments that are initially proposed and added to the CPED work plan through a docketing process.
“Annual comprehensive plan amendments are an optional process that’s allowed under state law, and jurisdictions can partake in this. Our comprehensive plan amendments are annually docketed and what gets docketed are the items that we move through every year,” Teeple explained.
The Washington State Growth Management Act (GMA) allows for cities and counties to consider annual amendments and adopt a package of changes to the comprehensive plan no more than once annually.
Teeple reviewed the prior decisions made for the comprehensive plan and presented the latest version, including Yelm Joint Plan and Lacey Joint Plan final directions.
Last August, the Olympia Joint Plan adapted Chapter 23.05 code changes to remove grocery store requirements.
“This is the same as the Thurston County Planning Commission and Olympia Planning Commission, and the city council,” said Steeple.
"We had several decisions made by the board over two very long briefings,” shared Teeple.
The board moved forward with the Subarea Plan, Title 20 Code Changes for lot widths and design guidelines, Steelhammer Land Use Change, Fire District Land Use Change, Tribal Trust Land Use Change, and Morgan Land Use.
The commissioners are set to vote on this on November 28 along with other items.
The plan received no comments during its recent public hearing last October 31.
“Going over previous recommendations, we received a unanimous recommendation from our planning commission and also from the Yelm City Council to approve the Yelm Joint Plan,” said Teeple.
The commissioners also decided to move forward with this plan.
The commissioners decided to adopt some changes to the Lacey Joint Plan, and Site-Specific Land Use & Zoning Requests on 9041 Pacific Ave (Bressi), 9520 Steilacoom Rd (MC Construction), 2427 Carpenter Rd. (McDaniel/Forester), and Urban Growth Area (UGA) Expansion. The commissioners voted against the Low-Density Consolidation request.
The BoCC Final Action, which will immediately implement most of these changes, will be on November 28, and the appeal period is set for late January to early February of next year. The final UGA expansion is effective if no appeal is received during that period.
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