PORT ANGELES — Additional comments will be accepted on the city’s draft revisions to the shoreline master program at a special planning commission meeting Wednesday.
The meeting was scheduled at the request of environmental activist Darlene Schanfald, Port Angeles Community and Economic Development Director Nathan West said last week.
The extra meeting on the plan, which governs public and private development along the city’s 17.7 miles of waterfront, will be at 6 p.m. in City Council chambers, 321 E. Fifth St.
West said additional comments were received from John Cambalik on behalf of the Strait of Juan de Fuca Ecosystem Recovery Network about 31/2 hours before the planning commission’s second public hearing on the plan May 9, after which the planning commission unanimously recommended City Council approval.
The planning commission also will take a second vote on the plan and issue a second recommendation after accepting more public comments.
“The concern was raised that we had cut off public comments prior to the [May 9] meeting,” West said.
The City Council will hold a public hearing on the plan June 5, with adoption likely at the council’s June 19 meeting, West said.
At the May 9 hearing, Schanfald, who could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon, criticized it for being vague, not being “user-friendly” and changing the industrially zoned former Rayonier pulp mill property to a mixed-use parcel.
West said Cambalik, who also could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon, submitted “exactly the same” comments, which take up 12 pages, to the city Harbor Planning Committee in February 2011.
The harbor committee produced a draft shoreline plan that formed the basis for the existing draft plan.
“Some of his actual suggestions were included” in the document, West said.
“The bottom line is we want to ensure we’ve got a very fair and transparent process, including that all comments get to the planning commission before they get to the City Council,” he said.
Six citizens spoke at two planning commission public hearings on the plan, West said.
Cambalik’s submission is a compendium of comments from a Strait Ecosystem Recovery Network task force, according to a background statement included in his submission.
Included in a section titled “general comments” is criticism that the “multitude of environmental designations” in the draft “seemed overly complex.”
The plan covers an area east from Morse Creek, west to the city limit at Dry Creek and north to the international border.
It also extends south from the shoreline and upland 200 feet from the ordinary high-water mark, which in Port Angeles is 7 feet above sea level, associate planner Scott Johns said in an earlier interview.
The plan’s goal is to promote public access to the shoreline, protect the shoreline’s natural resources and encourage water-dependent and water-oriented uses, Johns said.
The plan can be viewed at www.cityofpa.us/shoreline.htm.
________
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
