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Home My WebLink Aboutres1990-058WHATCOM COUNTY COUNCIL AGENDA BILL N0. 90 -281 A SUBJECT. SCHEDULING OF LAND USE ACTIONS: A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING POLICY ON SCHEDULING OF LAND USE ACTIVITIES ATTACHMENTS: Memo from Dan Taylor Draft Resolution Public Hearing Needed? Yes /—/ No /XX/ SUMMARY STATEMENT: The Growth Management Act requires comprehensive plan amendments to occur only once per year. There is also a desire on the commission's and staff's part to experiment with limiting other activities for efficiency as well as a comprehensive review. RECOMMENDED ACTION: Planning Commission and staff recommendation is for adoption of the proposed resolution. COMMITTEE ACTION (including dates): COUNCIL ACTION (including dates): 8 -7 -90 Approved unanimQuslY Related File Numbers: Ordinance or Resolution Number: R 90 -58 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 .g 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 FILE REF: 90- 06:ORD INTRODUCED BY: Consent S u l 57 i TaT e 8 /1 /90 PROPOSED BY: PLANNING . DATE-.k-.--8/7/90 RESOLUTION NO. 90 -58 A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING POLICY ON SCHEDULING LAND USE ACTIVITIES WHEREAS, the Growth Management Act passed by the 1990 legislature requires that comprehensive plan amendments occur no more frequently than once per year so they can be reviewed collectively; and WHEREAS, the Planning Commission has recommended that rezones which do not require comprehensive plan amendments and text amendments also be reviewed collectively; WHEREAS, limiting text amendments and map changes to only twice per year shall lead to greater efficiencies in scheduling workloads and limiting the continued changes to the zone map and Title 20; and WHEREAS, this will reduce staff time and printing costs, and avoid the constant obsolescence of the documents which creates a burden on the private sector and other agencies dependent on them. WHEREAS, the Growth Management Act provides an exemption for emergencies; and NOW, THEREFORE, it shall be the Council policy to accept private requests for comprehensive plan changes, rezones and amendments in accordance with the following schedule: Schedule of Land Use Activities TYPE OF ACTION SUBMITTAL DEADLINE PLANNING COMMISSION COUNCIL TITLE 20 REV rezones 12/31 Feb /March /April May /June July (with comp plan amend) text changes /rezones 7/31 Sept /Oct /Nov December January (without comp plan amend) 12/31 Feb /March /April May /June July The following items are specifically exempted from the schedule: (1) Review and adoption of subarea comprehensive plans; (2) The introduction of additional elements for the comprehensive plan in accordance with the list of required or optional elements provided by state law; (3) Public or private comprehensive plan amendments, rezones or text changes if determined by the County Council to be of an emergency nature. 32 11 This policy shall become effective December 1, 1990. I 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 PASSED this 7*:h day of August A T TEST- Clerk of the Council APPROVED AS TO FORM: Robert A. Carmichael, Civil Deputy Prosecuting Attorney 1990. WHATCOM COUP WHATCOM CQWM FILE REF: 06 -90: c,ZM Page 2 COUNCIL ,/WASHINGTON 0 Donal d/,X. /Haftey, Cherperson WHATCOM COUNTY PLANNING DEPARTMENT 401 Grand Avenue Bellingham, Washington 98225 MEMORANDUM TO: Don Hansey, Council Council McMbefs FROM: Dan Taylor, Director DATE: July 31, 1990 2061398 -1310 / 676 -6756 Fax. 676 -7727 / Scan: 7696756 Chair Land Use & Economic Planning RE: Planning Commission Recommendation Regarding Scheduling of Land Use Ordinance Actions The Growth Management Act (GMA) requires that comprehensive plan amendments be made only once a year and zoning must be a mirror image of the comprehensive plan. Therefore, most rezones can only be handled once per year, except for those such as R -10 to R -5 which are under the same comprehensive plan designation. In addition, we would like to experiment with clumping the latter rezones as well as the text changes for the sake of efficiency. The Planning Commission reviewed the staff recommendation at their regular meeting of July 17 (see attached memo) and voted unanimously to recommend to Council that the County try the proposed schedule. The attached resolution incorporates this approach. Eventually, it may be appropriate to do this by ordinance. However, Bob Carmichael feels a resolution is adequate and it can be considered more in the line of an experiment and changed later if it creates more problems than it solves. attachments 1 \Iandordsch.mem \07 -31 -90 WHATCOM COUNTY PLANNING DEPARTMENT 401 Grand Avenue Bellingham, Washington 98225 To: Planning ' fission From: Dan Taylor erector Date: July 17, 1990 Subject: Schedule of land use ordinance actions Scan: 769 -6756 Fax: 676 -7727 2061676 -6756 2061398 -1310 The Growth Management Act requires that the Council consider not more than once a year comprehensive plan amendments. This took effect July 1st, so none of the items received before that date are effected by the schedule below. We are proposing that Council hear the rezones that require comprehensive plan amendment in May and June. This seems better than the fall when the budget is being examined, and allows any new Planning Commission members to be seated in January before Planning Commission consideration begins. The table below shows the details of this schedule. In order to hear all proposed comprehensive plan amendments at once as the GMA requires, we will put together a summary of the requests for Planning Commission, and then schedule individual hearings. Whatever is passed for Council action will also be presented as a group, and then Council can decide whether or not to schedule individual hearings. Text amendments to the zoning code and the rezones that do not require comprehensive plan amendment are not restricted by the Growth Management Act. However, hearing them on a continual basis has not been working very well with the extremely heavy work load of the last several years. So we also intend to consolidate them so that the staff and Planning Commission can focus and consider them in a more efficient way. As shown below, these changes that do not require comprehensive plan amendment would be considered twice a year. This system has the advantage of only publishing Title 20 amendments twice a year, which will be a considerable savings in staff time and printing costs. It does mean that subarea plan and zoning adoption or other major items such as shoreline program amendments will need to be scheduled for the months when the Planning Commission and Council aren't dealing with a set of rezones. A remaining question that will be determined by how many zoning amendments are being considered is whether we can add other items to the Planning Commission agendas in the fall and spring. type of action submittal deadline planning commission council Tale 20 rev. * rezones with comp. plan amendments ** text changes & rezones w/o comp. plan amendment subareas or other major plans 12/31 Feb /March /April 7/31 Sept /Oct /Nov 12/31 Feb /March /April May /June July December January May /June July na May /June /July July /Aug /Sept January Nov /Dec /Jan Jan /Feb /March July * Presented as a summary of individual staff reports in February. ** Presented as a summary of individual staff reports in February and September.