2006 Minutes
Regular Meeting Minutes: September 21, 2006
By Gaylea Nolander
Oct 3, 2006, 13:51

·        Call to Order/Roll Call – The regular meeting of the Chewelah Planning Commission was called to order by Chairman Tom Bristol on September 21, 2006 at 7:00 P.M.  The following planning commission members were present: Chairman Tom Bristol, Irv Schick, Bill Davies (arrived at 7:10 P.M.), Kevin Herda, Alice Crowley, and Doug Sassman.  Excused absences:  Kadya Hugus and Daniel Voltz.  Also present: Chaz Bates, Planner; and Gaylea Nolander, Executive Secretary.

·        Agenda Additions, Deletions, and/or Changes – None.

·        Minutes – Irv Schick moved with a second from Doug Sassman to approve the August 17, 2006 minutes.  All in favor. 

·        Public Comments

Joann Blubaugh, Realtor, Windermere Realty, Chewelah WA – There are quite a few people that are having a very difficult time selling their properties because of the way they are zoned.  They are residences, they have always been residences, but at this time it is zoned Retail Business and the mortgage companies won’t loan on them because of the insurance, if it burned down they could not put a residence back there right now.  They are telling us because of the verbiage in there, they used to loan on them before, but now they are saying because of the verbiage it comes up as nonconforming, and, therefore, they can’t loan on them, they can’t do mortgages on them.  We have like four people in the family, they are in a 600’ square house, they can’t add on to it, they can’t sell it, because nobody can loan on it, so they are stuck there.  We have one lady here this evening whose husband died, she is from Germany, she needs to go back to Germany, she is going the First of October.  I have her house listed, but as it is now, all we can do is sell it as a business, and the buyers will have trouble getting a loan as a business unless they are already an established business where they can prove their income, so no one could come in and just start a new business probably.  I don’t know what to do about it.  I know that Colville has had some problems and they worked them out and I understood that you (Chairman Bristol) and Chaz, and so forth, were going to be talking to him also and see if there is something that can be done either in the verbiage or whatever we can do to make this easier for the people to sell their homes. 

Chairman Bristol – We have heard from people in the opposite end of town that have homes in the R-B zoning.  They are nonconforming which means they can’t add, replace or sell if the lending agency doesn’t want to lend to nonconforming. 

Discussion:

Chaz Bates shared the following options: 

(1)  Amend the permitted uses in the zoning table;

(2)  Change the nonconforming use provisions;

(3)  Conditional Use Permit – The purpose of a conditional use permit is to mitigate any negative impacts that a use might have in an area; 

(4) Rezone; or

(5) Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment.

(Bill Davies arrived at 7:10 P.M.)

Chaz Bates asked for direction from the planning commission in regard to this matter.

Planning Commission discussed the suggested options.         

Chaz advised that the current zoning was adopted in accordance with the public laws, notice requirements, through a public process, and with public input.  

Chairman Bristol advised that lending agencies have changed their criteria.

Planning Commission and Chaz advised that any changes would need to go through public process.  The public is encouraged to participate in the comprehensive plan update process.  This process will probably take at least a year and there is no guarantee specific property will get a change of designation.  City council will make the decision because it is a legislative decision. 

In answer to a question from Chairman Bristol about what type of process is used for changing the nonconforming use regulation, Chaz Bates advised it would be a Type III process, which is a city council, legislative process.  The process was estimated to take 5 to 6 months if everything went according to plan. 

Chaz Bates – This problem is different than the problem that we have heard before.  The problem that we heard before, we outlined the process for them to apply for a rezone and gave them the option to apply for that rezone and we haven’t heard anything from them.  They have chosen to wait for the comprehensive plan update. 

Motion

Doug Sassman – Number 1 is we have to go through the Comp Plan; Number 2, if we do it the way I understand it, any building in the downtown area could be torn down and a house could be built there, and I don’t think that we want that; so I think idea Number 3, and I can’t remember the wording on that, but I make a motion that we take Alternative Number 3.

Chaz Bates – …I will need to discuss it with other staff including administration, so I think a proper way for me would be to pursue with administration the changing of the nonconforming use provision.

Irv Schick - …We have a problem, I don’t want to create a problem solving a problem, and I don’t want to compound a single problem with multiple problems.

Betty Lorentz – 107 W. King - I am in the same boat.  I had my house sold and then after talking to city hall they left town in a hurry, because it was zoned, and I was told three things, I want a clarification on a lot of things.  I was told it was retail; I was told it was commercial; and I was told it was industrial.  Now I think each one has its own definition exactly what they are.  I have also been told that three blocks west of 395 is zoned commercial or one of these terms, three blocks east the same thing.  Now, that enlarges it tremendously.  It affects a lot of people and it certainly affected me and I have more than one piece of property, so I am very interested in what you are going to do here about all this.  The house I had sold and I lived in was built in the ‘40s, it has always been a home, and I was told just a couple of months ago when I was going to sell it that it was these three terms which I really don’t know to this day which it is.  How far does this zoning go?  Then I heard that a block off of 395 has been rezoned residential and it was built in ’28, and it has always been a store.  All of this is very confusing to us who own this property.  I have more property than this and I want a clarification of all of these things.  I asked when this was put into affect, because I have been there for twenty years and I was told in 1997.  How come as a person we didn’t know anything about it.  They told me it was a real estate person’s fault because they didn’t tell me.  I got the property because of an estate and I did not go through a real estate, so where is the hang up in all of this stuff, how are we to know?  I was absolutely flabbergasted when I heard this and so are a lot of other people that are in the same area and boat that I am.  Does it extend six blocks?  I was also told from here that because my place is right next to a business that dictates what it is supposed to be.  I said in other words one business dictates three blocks of homes what they are.  I don’t understand all of this, I am thoroughly confused. 

Chairman Bristol – I can clarify a little bit about the commercial and R-B.  People talk those two terms together, but in the comprehensive land use plan, which is the overall plan for the City, there is only commercial in that, there is not retail business and commercial, so it is either listed as residential or commercial.  That commercial includes retail business and commercial/industrial in the zoning.

Betty Lorentz – So all three terms are covered in one really?

Chairman Bristol – They are totally two different documents.  The comprehensive land use plan calls property commercial and then when it goes to the zoning it becomes more specific which is retail business or commercial/industrial.

Chaz Bates – Actually the commercial/industrial is implemented by the industrial designation.  Tom is absolutely right, when somebody told you it was commercial they were likely talking about the comprehensive plan and the land use designation would apply.  Then we go to zoning which is more specific, it actually outlines the rules that apply to a specific piece of property and that is retail business. 

Betty Lorentz – Is it possible for one house right next door…the courthouse has the place I am in listed as a one family unit residential place…It has never been a business.

Chaz Bates – I didn’t put the 1997 comprehensive plan together, which would have dictated how that zoning map was drawn, and actually the properties in question, your properties as well as the ones on the other side were rezoned in 1988, so almost 20 years ago.  The research wasn’t there but there may have been discussion of a couplet going through town at that time, somebody could have requested that for an area-wide rezone, and everybody that was there could have said yes that sounds great, or maybe one or two people got missed, who knows?  Tom mentioned something earlier that I think is important to note is that prior to the last three years lending companies didn’t care.  Lending companies didn’t call me up and ask me what it is zoned as, does it allow this, and what are your nonconforming use provisions…

Chairman Bristol – I own property in C-I and it was a home, one of the only homes that was in C-I, and we decided to sell it about eight years ago, and we could have sold it easily, and then we decided to keep it as a rental and we decided to sell it last year.  The person that wanted to buy it could not get money to buy it because it was nonconforming.  He had to get an individual loan from an individual to make it happen.  I know exactly what the problem is, but the whole atmosphere of the lending agents has changed.  This is the first time that this has come up in nine years, so these rules hadn’t been challenged or needed to be challenged, and now I think they do and we need to do everything we can to give citizens the rights of ownership and rights of their home ownership.

Betty Lorentz – Also, I think it should be clarified, is it true that it is three blocks that way, three blocks this way?

Chaz Bates - I think it might be about three blocks, but just along Main Street.

Chairman Bristol - …If you shift zoning, say you wanted to apply to be R-1, you can’t shift zoning without it being in alignment with the comp plan too, so that is why this other group wanted to change designations in both documents...the comprehensive land use plan and the zoning document…

Irv Schick – I think one thing we need to remind everybody is these things were not done in a vacuum, these were done in a public process, an open forum.

Chairman Bristol – I agree with Irv because I was on the ’92 plan amendment and the ’97 plan amendment and they were a public format.  We had meeting after meeting, month after month.  It doesn’t mean you don’t find things that don’t work later and that is why you go through a process to try to correct them.

Questions were asked from the audience by an unidentified citizen.  (Note: Later identified as Eva Rainer).  Why didn’t we know about these meetings…

Chairman Bristol – I do know that the public process was followed at that time…It seems to me a lot of times there are a lot of meetings that I don’t go to because they don’t seem to affect me and later I wish I would have gone because they did affect me, but I didn’t know it at the time and I would have rather stayed home, and that is a lot of what does happen. 

In response to a question about notification, Chairman Bristol responded as follows:  Every single thing that affects property is a public notice in the paper and advertised in a half dozen places, and posted, and if it is specific to that property, it is posted on the property, and neighbors are told about it.

Several citizens from the audience asked why they didn’t know about it, they are all neighbors and they didn’t know anything about it.

Chaz Bates – What Tom is saying is when an area-wide rezone happens, when we are talking about rezoning the entire community of Chewelah or readdress some of those issues, a direct mailing does not go out to every individual property owner.  What Tom is talking about when a mailing goes out is actually if you were to request a rezone with the City, 300’ around your property would get a letter mailed to their house saying what you are going to do and your property would be posted…

Chairman Bristol – It is also hard to resurrect what happened nine years ago exactly why some of you might have missed those meetings and those public processes.

Comment from the audience:  I don’t understand how we could have missed something that went on for three or four months.

Irv Schick – Probably because it was speaking about the whole City and they wasn’t any impetus to worry about it as long as it was the whole City and not you individually. 

Chairman Bristol – …I know that we try really hard and in Chewelah we are pretty exemplary with trying to follow the public process and this Board has tried as much as we can to figure out how people get information, how they find it, how they see it, so that they can come when things are going to affect them either legislatively for the whole City or individually…The point is now we are where we are at with the document that was started nine years ago and we are trying very hard as a group, and including Chaz, to see how we can get it corrected for everybody’s benefit.  We are trying to find the most expedient way to clean this up and, as Irv was saying, not cause a problem nine years further that we caused by actions we would initiate tonight.

Discussion between the audience and planning commission continued which included reiterating items previously set forth.

Chaz Bates – I just wanted to remind you that this body will be filtered to the city council…it will be a legislative decision…it will be the city council members that will be voting on a proposal.  These are the meetings that you are going to want to go to in order to get the things that you want to happen to go forward.

Question from the audience – Is there a charge to the homeowners in getting anything done, changed?

Chairman Bristol – If you are in a rush to change the comp plan and a rezone there is a charge for doing those.  If you are part of this public process and try to help us work with nonconforming use changes, there is no charge for that.

Chaz Bates – There is a zoning text amendment charge but it is sounds like this might be a large enough community problem that it can be addressed via the City.

Audience Question – I have been told that there is a $1,500 charge.

Chairman Bristol – I think it is $250 for a zone change and $1,200 for a comp plan amendment, if you do it out of alignment with the timing.

Conversations continued between Planning Commission and the audience.  (Unidentified members of the public speaking from the audience and comments were inaudible).    

Question from the audience – Am I right though in stating that I can’t do any kind of an addition to my house?

Chaz Bates – Where is your house located?

4^th and King.

Chairman Bristol – If you are in R-B, you are nonconforming and you can’t add to nonconforming, as it stands.  Now, if that is something that you are interested in getting put into this change, then I would really work towards that…maybe we are approaching it wrong with the nonconformity and we should go to amending the table…say any house built from ’97 or before has all the rights that you have in a R-1…as Irv says it may shoot a hole in having a long term plan.

Chaz Bates – Or finding what rights were available to those people pre-1997, which is not available right now here at city hall, and the one that you have shows that homes were not allowed prior to 1997, so looks like something before 1997 is required.

Chairman Bristol – Go back to the date that things changed and just vest everything with all of the rights of R-1 prior to that date.

Kevin Herda – Then would you have to do that for every zone?  Why is it fair to do it for just R-B?  What if you are in residential now, but thirty years ago it was commercial and you want it to be commercial, it is kind of opening up a big can of worms.  You need to go back and give us a list of a lot of options because…

Chairman Bristol – We can’t fix everything tonight…

Kevin Herda – Sounds like we can’t do anything tonight it is…

Chairman Bristol – We can direct Chaz. 

Gaylea Nolander reminded planning commission that there is a motion on the floor.

Chairman Bristol – Did we have a second on that?

Gaylea – No second. 

Doug Sassman withdrew his motion.

Chaz Bates – There were some other options that were thrown out that might deserve attention and when I mentioned option three it was limiting it strictly to the nonconforming use provision.

Irv Schick – Do we need a motion to ask you to examine these things carefully, come back with a recommendation, or two, or three options.  Obviously we need to do something.  It is an existing problem that is impacting people, but we don’t want to create other problems.  Do we need a motion to ask Chaz to investigate it more thoroughly…

Motion

Irv Schick – I make a motion that we direct Chaz to evaluate our options to see what is reasonably expedient and creates the fewest problems that will mitigate the current problem. 

Doug Sassman and Alice Crowley seconded the motion.

Vote

Planning Commission by roll call vote unanimously approved directing Chaz Bates to evaluate our options to see what is reasonably expedient and creates the fewest problems that will mitigate the current problem.   

Irv Schick – …it will probably be a minimum of six months before anything takes affect, maybe even a year by the time you get it through here, through law departments, and through the city council…In the meantime the comp plan process is going to be going on and a lot of these problems are going to be examined very carefully in that process so you may wind up seeing the comp plan done before anything else can actually get done.

Audience Comment - This gal here is going back to Germany.  Her husband died, she is a German citizen, not an American citizen.

Irv Schick – There is nothing this Board can do to actually mitigate this problem at this point in time.  All we can do is provide solutions and recommendations to the city council.

Chaz Bates – Right now it is the law.  We are obligated to follow the law until the city council with the authority vested in them by the people change the law.  That is what we have to follow unfortunately.  I am really sorry. 

Irv Schick – You are part of the public process right now.  Let’s hope that you will stay the course and participate clear through the whole public process, because you were caught unawares.  There was a public process that went on, whether it was any interest to you at that time or not is moot but it has now caught up with you.  That is why concerned citizens attend every meeting whether there is anything there is interested in or not, to make a difference.

Chairman Bristol announced that the planning commission meets once a month on every third Thursday at 7:00 P.M.

Joann Blubaugh thanked everyone for all of their work.  We do feel that you are listening to us…

·        Public Hearing Continued from June 15, 2006 to July 20, 2006, from July 20, 2006 to August 17, 2006, From August 17, 2006 to September 21, 2006.

Recommendation to City Council

Draft Shoreline Master Program

Applicant: City of Chewelah

Project Address: The proposal includes land 200’ landward of Chewelah Creek,                                     Thomason Creek, and Paye Creek.

Project Description:

                              The City of Chewelah is proposing to adopt a Shoreline Master                           Program consistent with the procedural and substantive                                      requirements of the Shoreline Management Act and Shoreline                                                 Master Program Guidelines.  This revision to the SMP includes                                     shoreline goals and policies, environmental designations, and                                     use regulations within the shoreline jurisdiction.

Exhibits 1 and 2 are attached hereto, incorporated herein and made a part of these minutes as though fully set forth.

Exhibit List

(1) Staff Report

(2) Public Hearing Sign-In Sheet

SUMMARY

(Planning Commission continued the above entitled matter, including public comments and public testimony, to October 19, 2006 at 7:00 P.M.  Public testimony received from: Robert Harrison and Bob Playfair).

Chairman Bristol reconvened the public hearing for the Shoreline Master Program at 8:00 P.M.   

Staff Report

Chaz Bates reviewed the staff report marked as Exhibit 1 and attached hereto, incorporated herein, and made a part of these minutes as though fully set forth.  We have been chosen by the Department of Ecology for being a small town in Washington in hopes that we develop something that can be used as a template across Washington for communities of similar size. 

Chaz advised that recently the Attorney General provided a very brief and incomplete review and comment over the draft currently under review.  The comment expressed concern over including Thomason and Paye Creeks within the Shoreline Master Program even if clearly separate.  It is recommended that we provide protection for Paye and Thomason Creeks under the Critical Areas Ordinance.  He acknowledged that it is a significant comment and may be the bulk of the discussion this evening. 

Chairman Bristol – The Critical Areas Ordinance does not need approval from Department of Ecology to change or be added to?

Chaz Bates – As it is currently done in our Shoreline Master Program, I can’t remember the exact language…but essentially it says that any critical areas that occur within the shoreline jurisdiction are protected by the Critical Areas Ordinance, so essentially we are saying by reference we are adopting a Critical Areas Ordinance…if we go ahead and adopt that any amendment to that Critical Areas Ordinance will be required to go through Ecology for approval at least in so far as it is within the shoreline jurisdiction I think, nobody is sure.  There is actually a lawsuit.

Irv Schick – I find that hard to believe.  If you adopt an existing ordinance by reference, let’s go to something that I am very familiar with, the City adopts the International Building Code…by reference.  That is one thing.  That now means that would have to be adopted by or…by another organization, that doesn’t seem appropriate to me that the CAO as an ordinance or piece of legislation adopted by the city council if it was referenced and adopted by reference in another piece of legislation that…they could look at it and say, no, we don’t think you should adopt this by reference I would say.  You should have the ability to look at the Shoreline Master Plan and say, no, we don’t agree with that, so you can’t adopt it, you can’t adopt the CAO as part of the Shoreline Master Plan, but to say they then have jurisdiction over the CAO is I think stretching it.

Chaz Bates – In…Senate House Bill in 1933 adopted by our legislature, some of you are aware how often weird things happen at the legislature, and they get adopted, transferred authority of critical areas from the Growth Management Act to the Shoreline Management Act.  They said that those regulations are now being regulated under the Shoreline Management Act.  The Shoreline Management Act says that Ecology has final approval on adoption of shoreline master programs, amendments to shoreline master programs, conditional shoreline permits, shoreline variances, and substantial shoreline development permits…Ecology has to go through an adoption process and that process includes if we make an amendment to our Critical Areas Ordinance, and it probably, and this is something I have to get clarification on, is only within the shoreline jurisdiction (interrupted).

Irv Schick – So whether it is adopted by reference or not, it is part of their jurisdiction, the Critical Areas Ordinance is part of their jurisdiction anyway.

Chaz bates – What could be done, instead of what we have done was basically just referenced the Critical Areas Ordinance is extrapolate that critical areas stuff as it is and put it into the Shoreline Master Program and then have it as a distinct separate document unlike integration.  I don’t know if I want to do that or how we should approach that at this point. 

Kevin Herda – That is why things take so long because it takes a room full of lawyers to interpret what we can do. 

Irv Schick – We are back for another year. 

Chaz Bates – No, I don’t think that is the case. 

Kevin Herda – We don’t know what we can do, or what we can’t do, because one group of the government says you can’t do it.

Chaz Bates – What I would suggest is that, I don’t know if I suggest this, but it is an alternative for you to consider, would be to just take those provisions that are protecting critical areas as they are right now…

Irv Schick – Out of the Shoreline Master Plan.

Chaz Bates – Well, no, out of our ordinance and put them in the Shoreline Master Program and not use the reference.  In other words we are talking about stepping back from full integration, or another alternative is keep it the same, it is kind of your preference as a City.

Chairman Bristol – If we move it forward it is going to eventually get to, and I don’t know if it would be this same fellow, the same attorney general but it will get the full scrutiny from Department of Ecology, and at least we will get some legal feedback as to what we can or can’t do.  Keeping it here is not going to change it.

Chaz Bates – Ecology is okay, but integration (inaudible, unable to transcribe, several conversations taking place at once)…I think what the attorney general has mentioned is Thomason and Paye which is a whole other issue aside from this critical areas one.  I feel like I am dropping something on you but it kind of got dropped on me… (interrupted).

Chairman Bristol – Two things, the critical areas and…(inaudible, several conversations taking place at once). 

Irv Schick – We have two topics that basically just put us back to square one in a lot of ways.  I say let’s stay with the way we are and let them fight it out with the critical areas, keep it as simple as we can for our sakes.

Chairman Bristol – There is something I like about keeping our critical area ordinance separate instead of imbedding it in a Department of Ecology scrutinized document…

Irv Schick – The other problem is if whether we could include the other two.

Chaz Bates – And my suggestion for that, and again, it is an alternative, two alternatives, or three:  (1) Keep it the way it is; (2) Remove Thomason and Paye and use that information that was collected for Thomason and Paye, the science that was done, and put that into the critical areas ordinance when we go to update the critical areas ordinance with the comprehensive plan development regulations; or (3) Do something totally different. 

Kevin Herda – How come you never said anything until now?

Chaz Bates – About the critical areas, because it was pointed out to me just recently.

Kevin Herda – No, about Thomason and Paye Creeks, that they didn’t like them being part of it.

Chaz Bates – This is the first time that Ecology’s Attorney General had a chance to look at it.

Irv Schick – Ecology like it…

Chaz Bates – This is a reasonably informal comment from the Department of Ecology I think.  You can see that it actually is not even directed to me it was cc, and I didn’t include that for the rest of the audience just because I didn’t ask the attorney general for Ecology if I could share that with…

Chairman Bristol – This was to Doug Pineo who advised us to allow, what a clean document it would be if we had all of our creeks and waterways taken care of in one document versus all over the place.

Chaz Bates – …asked me to send them a link to the critical areas ordinance on line.

Irv Schick – I wonder if Doug would argue for us. 

Chaz Bates – I think he probably would.  As I mentioned earlier I haven’t been a squeaky enough wheel, I haven’t really talked to Doug, I know he is busy with a lot of other jurisdictions…

Irv Schick – I would say let’s take no action at this point in time and let them hassle it out a little bit and decide which way they want it.

Kevin Herda – Are they going to, or are they just going to wait until we take action on it?

Chairman Bristol – If we were to move it forward to city council then they are going to have to do more than just cc email documentation, they are going to have to say we won’t accept this, or you need to do this and that, eventually we have to get it to that stage.  I don’t know right off because it is new to me whether it makes sense to extract Thomason and Paye Creeks and deal with them through the critical areas ordinance or not, there may be some advantages to that, but here we are again the eleventh and one half hour going what do we do.

Irv Schick – I say let’s let them fight it out, figure out which way to go, let’s get it to the point where we get them to actually sit down and thoroughly review it somehow or another if we have to wait for another month for them to do it and come back with finalized recommendations that they will accept that is one thing, if not, we move it to city council and then they have to review it one way or another.

Chaz Bates – I guess what I am hearing you say would be for me to call Doug (Pineo) saying next month we are forwarding this document as it is written to city council for adoption.

Chairman Bristol – We are still in the middle of the public process and this is a staff report so we are going to continue with it.

Irv Schick – That would be my point of view at this point in time is to make sure we get some movement one way or another, otherwise we are going to be another year from now with them diddling around and us trying to weave around whatever they might comment on.  This is actually ridiculous. 

Chairman Bristol – We had advice from Doug Pineo.  I would like to hear his response minimally to this from the attorney general to see what his advice is because he has been working with Chewelah on the SMP for ten years.  I would like to see if he is going to go to bat or…

Irv Schick – Either we get definitive recommendations to change or we go forward, one of the two, and fairly soon, because we are setting here month after month after month waiting for people…we have another process we still have to go through.

Bill Davies – I was in a discussion this week and I was told that Paye Creek was created by a break in Thomason Creek pipe and hopefully since that has been repaired Paye Creek is going to disappear and dry up by next summer.

Chairman Bristol – I know where Paye Creek starts and you are listening to the wrong people.  Paye Creek starts from bubbled up water below Sand Canyon, below the Golf Course and that is where its head waters are.  You can walk to it, see it, and feel it, and it takes off from there to town.  It is a very short stream, but it comes up from artesian wells in that location the same as some of the aquifers. 

Bill Davies – Or was it the other way around, Thomason Creek?  One of them had a break. 

Chairman Bristol – Thomason Creek starts up and comes down from Flowery Trail.  There are parts of both streams that are embedded in culverts through, I think part of Thomason Creek was routed through a culvert under the hospital, original hospital not the long-term care, nor the addition.

Alice Crowley – It is under the new one. 

Irv Schick – They both have origins ten miles apart.

Chairman Bristol – Do we have other staff report, can we move on with the public hearing at this point. 

Chaz Bates – I don’t have any additional information…Environmental determination has been made on this document and we didn’t hear any comments back from anybody.  It has been to CTED, and CTED has not commented on it, but they told me they are not going to comment on it because it is not within their jurisdiction, and then I listed out a series of findings there that I think will probably be available for you to look at and deliberate over when and if you decide to make a recommendation to the city council.

Chairman Bristol – Do we have any communications or petitions to be presented?

Gaylea Nolander – I placed the Notice of Continuation of public hearing in the same places that I always do and on the website.  Note:  Posting of Notice of Continuation of Public Hearing was done as follows: Posted on both entrances to city hall and the official city hall bulletin board, Chewelah Library, Chewelah Post Office, AmericanWest Bank, and the City of Chewelah Website. In addition to those postings I sent the referenced documents and a memo to: Robert Harrison, Charles Burnett, Chad Burnett, Joseph Zollman, Gary Plotts, Barbara Nelson, and Roseanna Nielsen that read as follows: I am enclosing page 17 to update the Draft Shoreline Master Program.  If you have a copy of the Shoreline Master Program please remember this is a draft document, changes have been made to the original document, and changes will continue to be made during this process.  The most recent draft of the Shoreline Master Program may be accessed from the City’s website at www.cityofchewelah.com.  The public hearing in regard to the Shoreline Master program has been continued to Thursday, September 21, 2006 at 7:00 P.M. in the Chewelah City Council Chambers. 

Public Testimony

Bob Playfair – 905 E. Stingy Lane, Chewelah WA – The first comment that I have got is on page 74, under reports and maps, it says, second item, Comprehensive Growth Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement City of Chewelah 2002.  To the best of my knowledge going back to your other report is the comp plan was ’97.

Chaz Bates – The comprehensive plan map was amended in 2002…

Bob Playfair – That should be spelled out in there.

Chaz Bates – In the staff report or the…

Bob Playfair – Actually in your document, because that is an amendment but it is not an amendment to the plan, it is just a map amendment if I heard you correct.  Okay that is the first item.  Secondly based on the discussion on Paye and Thomason Creeks actually state law says that and it is true that Chewelah Creek is the only creek that should be under the Shoreline Management Plan.  The other creeks are covered under the critical areas ordinance. My suggestion is go back to the RCW because each one of those sections is covered under a city title by the same as the RCW is and the critical areas ordinance is a different document than the Shoreline Master Plan because the CAO comes under the Growth Management Act rather than the Shoreline Act.  My suggestion is just like you said extract all reference to those two creeks hold that and adopt the Shoreline Master Plan to Chewelah Creek only. 

Robert Harrison – 605 W. Main, Chewelah WA – Chewelah Creek is the only creek that does 220 cubic feet a second which is state law blah, blah, blah.  I agree with Mr. Playfair, think you ought to just pull the other two creeks out for now and work on Chewelah Creek.  I also got a new map from Gaylea, but it says on the very last line “If no designation can be identified , the area shall be automatically assigned the urban conservancy designation” (page 17).  I thought we were getting rid of that. 

Chaz Bates – It is one of those things that gets missed…make you feel safer that we have reduced the reaches on the map, so every reach has a designation associated with it.

Chairman Bristol – So that is not a needed wording in there.

Chaz Bates – It is not a needed wording. 

Robert Harrison – It appears we may have some time here, so at the risk of getting shot I will ask one more thing, it says: The administrator will have the power and authority to approve with conditions, deny, or…approve any project related to this (SMP page 62).  That is kind of…to me.  I think the city administrator is the city administrator. 

Chaz Bates – Do you know what permit it is referring to?

Robert Harrison – It just says approve, approve with conditions, deny shoreline substantial development permits, and shoreline permit revisions.  Shouldn’t something like that come through here and then the council, like everything else does? 

Chaz Bates – No.  Not everything goes to council, for example, the site plan review process, which is a process that this body, quasi-judicial decisions, this body holds the hearing, and makes the decision on that application.  We have items like short plats that are administratively approved, rather than come through this body and then to city council for legislative approval.  We have Type I variances…which is administrative approval, so that is all that is saying for a substantial development permit, instead of having to wait a month or two months to get a hearing from planning commission, that we can have the city administrator approve it.  Usually substantial development permits are related to development such as a house, so in other words, instead of having to have a hearing on whether or not you can build a house, we are going to allow you to go ahead and get administrative approval on that as long as it is consistent with these policies and regulations. 

Robert Harrison – I have seen how this works.

Chaz Bates – The administrative approval process?  It is certainly a recommendation that this body can consider.

Robert Harrison – I think that is a lot of power to put in the city administrator’s chair.

Chaz Bates – Any city administrator approval, denial, conditional approval can be appealed…(interrupted).

Robert Harrison – Anything that I have had anything to do with has come through here or city council if you get in front of them, it is their decision, it isn’t his. 

Chaz Bates – A lot of people that are developing or building houses are loathed to wait three months for a decision on whether or not they can actually build a house.  The administrative approval process is intended to be when they are clear cut decisions, consistent with the goals, policies, and regulations to be approved, denied, or conditionally approved.  I can understand your reservations.

Chairman Bristol – If he doesn’t have a comfort zone with it, put it through planning commission, just like we did on site plan review, or this critical area ordinance, we allowed administrative approval, but if he didn’t have a comfort zone on it then they would put it to here.  Like the little extension to the deck, 180’ from the creek. 

Chaz Bates – I don’t think so, but I want to look at one thing before we leave this topic, and it has to do with the table.  What I am going to look at is the majority of the permits associated with the shoreline master program require a site plan review process which actually do come through this body.  There are a few that don’t and only require a substantial review for a development permit, and that is a single-family dwelling unit that is exempt from shoreline development permit (SMP page 43,44), archeological, cultural, and historical…is exempt from substantial shoreline development permit.

Irv Schick – So that could be the only one that the CA could actually approve, disapprove, or put conditions on?

Chaz Bates – Actually I take that back…in agricultural…single-family dwelling is shoreline exempt and requires a site plan review, so does a single-family unit.

Chairman Bristol – So what would be administrative approval?

Chaz Bates – I am not seeing anything. 

Irv Schick – So maybe we could strike that?

Chaz Bates – Other than that the administrator could approve substantial development permits.  I guess that is the way I would imagine it work is that the City would review that permit and it would come here for you to approve the site plan review, and reserve comments on substantial development permit, but allow some flexibility, maybe comments. 

Chairman Bristol – Maybe Irv is right, maybe that shouldn’t even be in that document, because it certainly does throw you off on a wrong direction thinking there is an administrative approval process when there really isn’t one.

Chaz Bates – Or maybe there should be an administrative approval process.  We have heard that there is some hesitancy, at least at the stand here, for that process…(interrupted).

Kevin Herda – I don’t think there should be.  We have worked on this thing for ten years, I don’t think that some guy that just got the job this week should be able to decide that it is fine to build.

Irv Schick – He is not going to have the knowledge of all of the regulations.

Kevin Herda – Or the public input or anything else. 

Chaz Bates – I think he will be aware of the regulations…

Irv Schick – I would tend to look at it and see if that section could be stricken. 

Chaz Bates – Let me take a look at it before we make a recommendation.

Chairman Bristol – And I agree, I think what we are hearing, and we are between city administrators, and it is going to take quite awhile for a new guy to get up on everything in town and always have to shift whenever there is a change of a person versus a change of a policy.  I think it should always go to a process versus just a person. 

Chaz Bates – What the section is saying, this body changes too.

Irv Schick – It only changes a couple people at a time.  We have along history here. 

Chaz Bates – The administrative approval process is not based on opinion, that is an important distinction, that anything that involves any sort of opinion, or any sort of question about how regulations apply, go through this body or the city council. 

Chairman Bristol – Which I think is what Bob is saying, that is what it should do, instead of just a capricious decision out of an office.

Irv Schick – let’s see what conditions are set and see if we can’t eliminate that if…

Kevin Herda – And that other wordage, unless specified, we are just going to take that out? 

Chairman Bristol – Since there is nothing specified. 

Chaz Bates – I just glanced at this section on page 62 (SMP), that is where you grant statements of exemption from substantial development permit, it should still be an administrative approval process, if it is exempt, which we identified two things that were exempt from that. 

Chairman Bristol – We are still in public hearing.  Are there other people that would like to speak to this issue at this moment?  We have continued this since June 15^th and we have new information, and there were two public testimonies tonight both spoke in favor of maybe keeping SMP separate to Chewelah Creek and having the work we have done on Paye and Thomason involved with the CAO.  I think that we need to consider that particularly with the letter from the attorney general setting in front of us or at least have further discussion on which way to go.  Personally, I don’t care, other than after twelve years of working on this I want to get it done, and the idea we were told early on was, yes, you have to protect Chewelah Creek, because it is a stream of statewide significance, but we also saw that we have streams of, and also Ecology recognized that we have streams of local significance, and we were trying to do some protections where they were all linked together, if it has to be in separate documents, as long as it achieves the same goal, so what, let’s just do something.  Do we have further public comment?  Do we want to extend the public hearing process until next meeting?

Irv Schick – We are going to have to.  I can’t see any way around it…We are going to continue this to the next meeting I guess. 

Chairman Bristol – (inaudible, unable to transcribe, several people talking at once). 

Motion

Irv Schick – I make a motion to continue the public hearing including public testimony to the next meeting, October 19, 2006 at 7:00 P.M.

Chaz Bates – I just want to make sure I am clear, are you asking me to pull out Thomason and Paye Creeks, or after we discuss it with…(interrupted).

Chairman Bristol – No, we have to go through this month of scrutiny which makes most sense, I think, and listen to, particularly because Doug Pineo has worked with us for ten years on this, I want to hear what he has to say in discussion with this note from the attorney general.  We are trying to make it clean so the public will go, here is the document that deals with your streams, here is the statewide one that we have to look at, here are your local ones, if we have to chase around and find it different places, so be it.

Chaz Bates – The regulations for those areas are still going to be essentially almost the same.  I think the things that would be missing…riparian buffer strips, I think we would pull it out, that is about it.  That is just off the top of my head, I am sure there is a lot more in there…

Chairman Bristol – The motion would be to extend the public hearing to our next meeting which is October 19, 2006 at 7:00 P.M., Thursday, here in the city council chambers. 

Kevin Herda seconded the motion.

Vote

Planning Commission by roll call vote unanimously approved continuing the public hearing for the Shoreline Master Program, including public testimony and public comments, to Thursday, October 19, 2006 at 7:00 P.M.

·        Communications and Announcements

City Administrator Position – Gaylea Nolander announced that Jon Lind, City Administrator has accepted a position with Tri-County Economic Development District.  Curt Kelling has been appointed to fill the Chewelah City Administrator position effective October 1, 2006.  Mr. Kelling is presently the City Administrator for Medical Lake.  

·        Reports from Members and Committees – None.

·        Reports from City Administrator and Staff

State APA Conference – Chaz Bates announced that the APA Conference is October 4^th through the 6^th in Yakima and invited planning commission members to attend.  Chaz Bates will be speaking at the conference on the Role of the Planning Commissioner.  He asked planning commission members to email him with what you think your role is by next week to include in his presentation. He will use your name unless you ask otherwise.  

·        OLD BUSINESS – None.

·        NEW BUSINESS

Comprehensive Plan Updates – Chaz Bates advised that a lot more work has not been done on this project since his assistance has left to go back to school.  Chaz will be changing the parcel lines on the existing land use map.  We are accepting comments from people for comprehensive plan map amendments.  . 

Irv Schick – We are identifying the people and then asking them to clarify what they are requesting? 

Chaz Bates – When people have a suggestion for us to consider during this comp plan update process, I am suggesting that they fill out a general land application, write a letter, and that letter will be based on that permit information sheet that we have.  They can just fill in the blanks, it doesn’t have to be detailed.  I want to be sure that I have the necessary information in order to contact them if I have any questions concerning their request.   

Chairman Bristol suggested adding a sheet to our land use procedures handbook specifically for comp plan amendments occurring during the regular comp plan update cycle. 

Gaylea Nolander is compiling a list of potential applicants.     

·        Public Comments – None.

·        Adjournment – Irv Schick moved with a second from Bill Davies to adjourn the meeting.  All in favor.  Meeting adjourned at 8:55 P.M.

Respectfully submitted by:

__________________________________    __________________________________

Gaylea Nolander, Executive Secretary  Thomas Bristol, Chairman

Attachments may be reviewed at City Hall, Room 107

Minutes approved on October 19, 2006