The Issaquah City Council voted Monday night March 2 to approve a workplan for the Planning Department regarding proposed amendments to the Comprehensive Plan, land use code, and zoning map.
Land use codes can be amended at any time, but state law limits comprehensive plan amendments to once a year. Issaquah adopted its Comprehensive Plan in 1995; a result of the state Growth Management Act, which requires cities to prepare, implement and update a plan.
The Planning Policy Commission held a public hearing in January to glean insight from community members regarding what needed changing. Recommendations from city administration and the Planning Policy Commission were submitted to the Council Land Use Committee, who discussed the issue in late February, and sent it to the City Council with a final list of recommended amendments.
Amendments to the Comprehensive Plan include:
• An option to annex the Klahanie area into the city, though city staff say this is unlikely to be pursued.
• Create a sustainability element, using goals established by the Council Sustainability Committee.
• Establish measurable shoreline goals, and a system of monitoring number of species present, water quality and other factors.
Amendments to the land use code include:
• Shifting final decision making authority regarding master site plans from the City Council to the Hearing Examiner, and Level 4 appeal reviews from the council to Superior Court.
• Clarifying the timeline and process for mitigated determination of non-signifigance.
Councilman John Rittenhouse reminded the public that the council vote didn’t approve the amendments; only sent them to the Planning Department as considerations.
“This is simply the docket of amendments to be considered over the course of 2009,” he said. “So we’re not actually deciding to approve any land use code Comprehensive Plan amendments at this time.”
“This simply sets the workplan.”
Actual amendments will go through much of the same process to achieve approval.
This process includes consideration by the Planning Depertment, then reviews by the Planning Policy Commission, the Land Use Committee, and, finally, back to the Issaquah City Council.
