PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners held a hearing continuation on changes to the flood damage prevention code on Monday.
Residential and commercial owners from Brinnon attended the meeting to offer public comment, imploring the commissioners to slow the process down and to better involve the affected community.
Changes in the code specify a special development permit for the floodplain, which has been and will continue being difficult to develop in. About 99 percent of downtown Brinnon is either in the floodplain or floodway.
The Board of County Commissioners decided to push the decision back again, scheduling a meeting for Monday, Nov. 18, at 6:30 p.m. at the Brinnon Community Center, 306144 US-101, in Brinnon.
“I don’t know that I’m going to come to a different conclusion,” said Commissioner Kate Dean. “But I do think that we could do a better job of communicating the changes that we’re proposing. Then once we do that, be able to better assess the impacts that have been brought up.”
Dean said that two issues remain outstanding — one is how the update could affect the community of Brinnon and the other is how the change could affect farmers in the county. Should the update go through, both groups could be affected by high levels of difficulty when trying obtain development permits.
“We have this whole village (Brinnon) that has been there for a long time and sits in the floodway of the Dosewallips River,” said Dean. “And the question is, should we be allowing more development where we know that people could easily be in harm’s way? Or should we encourage the development to go outside of the floodway? And how do you do that fairly?”
The question of whether or not the county might have the capacity to differentiate between agricultural buildings and residential or commercial buildings, while maintaining FEMA standards for flood insurance, remains open, said Phil Cecere, Jefferson County fire marshal and building official. Cecere said that he would circle back around to see what he could find.
“This comes up with agriculture because a lot of good farmland is in floodplains and floodways,” said Dean. “That’s how those good agricultural soils are created. So, trying not to limit too much what farmers can do with things like greenhouses, it’s just not the same as a residence in terms of life safety concerns.”
“FEMA doesn’t have a ‘temporary structure’, they either consider it a structure or a non-structure,” said Cecere.
Owners can seek exceptions if their development permits are denied, through a variance process, taking the county out of the equation, said Cecere.
The case would go before a hearing examiner. This would likely be a timely and expensive process, said Dean.
Alternatively, FEMA may consider a revision of the floodplain and floodway map on a parcel by parcel basis, said Greg Ballard, deputy floodplain administrator, but it would likely be a slow process.
Public comment
Eight people gave public comments at the commissioners meeting, requesting further consideration and more time.
“Nobody’s saying that there are no risks, or that mitigating efforts are not neccesary,” said Jean Ball of Quilcene. “What we’re saying is that we don’t understand the proposal because we’ve had no time to digest the issue. We feel wholly unprepared to engage in discussion in a meaningful and well informed manner.”
Comments on the possible economic effect of the update were numerous.
“I understand that this might not cost the county money to enact and engage,” said Brinnon resident Dan Ventura. “But there is significant impact that may come from decreased property values, decreased sales tax assessments, decreased property tax assessments, etc. So this does have real world financial implications for the county and for the individual residents of the county, located in these floodplain areas.”
Dan Baisch of Brinnon suggested working with Olympic Peninsula-based environmental engineering company Natural Systems Designs, to see if they could satisfy FEMA by designing and implementing a mitigation solution.
Commissioner Greg Brotherton said that the county has tried seeking out solutions for the Brinnon core; in the past, they considered a grant which would have funded an investigation into the floodway, possibly leading to mitigation options.
“We brought a grant to bear,” said Brotherton. “We said, ‘hey, this will be great’, it was right at the headwaters, it was for the downtown core. We heard loudly from the community of Brinnon, ‘don’t do that’. At that point I said, ‘you are sticking your head in the sand’. We didn’t apply for that grant because it was unwanted to open this book, but nothing’s changed, downtown Brinnon is in a floodway and that’s an existential threat to development in Brinnon.
The conversation has been recurring, said Brotherton, especially in regards to a Brinnon sewer system, which is currently being worked on by the board.
“I’m happy to kick the can down the road to give folks more time, but we did bring that opportunity to look for solutions and Brinnon said, ‘no’.”
“I think what we didn’t do in this ordinance, which we sometimes do a better job with, is really clearly say, ‘this is the change that’s going to happen’,” said Dean. “I’m generally supportive, but I think we need to bring people along for me to feel good about passing this.”
Changes to Jefferson County Code were brought to the commissioners as the culminating step of a 2023 Community Assistance Visit (CAV), conducted by the State Department of Ecology on behalf of FEMA. After making some recommended code updates, the county will be in compliance with FEMA for maintaining standards for the National Flood Insurance Program, and potentially qualifying county residents for discounted rates through FEMA’s Community Rating System (CRS).
Cecere said the process has been lengthy and public, citing two workshops with the board of commissioners. Also, it went through the planning commission, he said.
The Nov. 18 meeting should be accessible via zoom, but Dean said that she recommends that people come in person, as there have been challenges with zoom at Brinnon meetings in the past, due to internet connection issues.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com
