County Commissioners Jan 28th Meeting - 1/25/08

Commissioner's Monday Meeting. Two Illahee related items will be discussed at Monday's Jan 28th Board of County Commissioner's (BOCC) meeting beginning at 7 pm. (Also, some of you will be receiving this email twice as this is being sent out to the CAG email list after being sent to the general email list.)

Item #1 -- Illahee Community Plan. The Illahee Community Plan will be discussed as part of a resolution to amend the Kitsap County Comprehensive Plan. The resolution allows the Illahee Community Plan to be reviewed and updated by Kitsap County planners in 2008. It is important to have community members attend, thus showing our interest and appreciation to the county for considering our plan.

Illahee Plan Opponents. This is a hard paragraph to write. We were told a community plan such as ours will likely have opponents. We have tried to accommodate everyone over the last two plus years and have been able to work out nearly all concerns. And so we were surprised at the last BOCC meeting (1/14/08) to hear someone tell the the Commissioners the Illahee Community Plan was developed by "special interest" groups and suggested that it should be worked on by a county group rather than the Illahee community. We had a Citizens Advisory Group (CAG) of nearly 100 from throughout Illahee and used questionnaires and written responses to insure broad input and to try and avoid these type of accusations. We are writing this so you won't be surprised, like we were, if there is some opposition at the meeting.

Plan Schedule. Because our plan was modeled after the Manchester plan, the review process should be quicker. The goal was not to "reinvent the wheel" but to use what has been successful in other communities. Hopefully the county public review process will simply involve reviewing, editing, and revising as necessary. We would like to have the final draft complete by the beginning of summer.

Wednesday's BOCC Work/Study Session. The Illahee Community Plan was discussed at the Commissioner's Work/Study session on Wednesday morning (1/23/08) which was attended by Irwin and Judith Krigsman. Their notes of the meeting are provided below:

• James Weaver and Scott Diener briefed the Illahee Community Plan and stated it would be the DCD's top priority for 2008.
  
• A listing of staff comments and corrections to the Illahee Community Plan was distributed.
  
• Red Flags: lot aggregation, view protection, tree protection, Bremerton annexation of Illahee in the future.
  
• DCD doesn't want to get involved with view protection because DCD doesn't have the staff to enforce nor do they want to be involved with that. Weaver said that this should be handled between neighbor to neighbor.
  
• The Illahee plan appears to have been modeled from a LAMIRD (limited area of more intense rural development) which is a rural designation. Illahee is in a UGA and thus that model doesn't apply since Illahee isn't designated as rural.
  
• Density is an issue: 4 units per acre vs. 5 units per acre.
  
• Work is needed on transportation and capital facilities sections and shoreline management.
  
• Growth management act requires sewers throughout UGAs.
  
• Minimum lot size: not consistent between sections of the plan.
  
• Concerns about legacy lots, unvacated roadways and tax title strips and unopened rights of way. One suggestion was to give the tax title strips to adjacent owners to increase setbacks and not vacate roadways.
  
• The bulk of the plan is very good and should be able to be finalized in 2008.
  
• Commissioner Bauer wanted to know which parts of the plan have legal requirements and are not negotiable and which are only opinions raised by the planning staff but conflicted with the community's desires. Which portions of the plan are "like to's" vs. "have to's".
  
• Shelly Kneip, deputy prosecutor's office, was present and said that she had reviewed the plan and her comments were incorporated into the staff's comment document. Commissioner Bauer wanted to see her legal notes.
  
• Illahee uniquely has more park land and open space and critical areas than any of the other community plans. Also there are issues related to aquifer recharge areas.
  
• Meetings about the plan should include the City of Bremerton representatives because of the annexation interests. Illahee is in the Bremerton UGA.
  
• Confusion expressed about the Illahee Community boundary lines since part of the map includes a portion of the City of Bremerton.
  
• No comments were received from the Parks Dept as yet. Letters were sent to the parks Dept on 9/21/07 and 12/23/07. Other county depts. did review and comment.
  
• Kick of for the plan is February – March 2008. Bi-weekly meeting were suggested and will be coordinated by planner Katrina Knutson. Knutson was the planner involved with the Manchester plan. Completion date targeted for May or early June.
  
• Commissioners and staff are pleased with the draft plan as submitted, realizing that the concerns raised by the staff are resolvable. They also said that the efforts of the community in writing the plan did save the county money in staff time and materials.
  
• The commissioners expressed appreciation for the efforts of the community and appear to be supportive.

Item #2 -- Smith/Peacock petition for sale of tax title lands portion along Fern Ave right-of-way. The discussion for this item was held over from the last board meeting to allow Dwayne Peacock an opportunity to testify.

Meeting Schedule. The Comprehensive Plan resolution, which includes the Illahee Community Plan, will be discussed early on in the meeting along with opportunities for people to briefly comment (limited to 3 minutes). The Smith/Peacock petition is scheduled to be discussed later in the meeting.

Dennis Sheeran & Jim Aho

PS The illaheecommunity.com website is being continually updated and residents are encouraged to use the blog site so all can see any input on these updates.