PORT TOWNSEND — The City Council reviewed results of a town meeting on priorities for revision of the Port Townsend comprehensive plan and discussed whether to look at the issues separately, find a way in which they are all interconnected or pick one to focus on.
Monday night’s meeting, a joint workshop between the council and city Planning Commission, was a follow-up to a June 24 town meeting, where attendees were asked to rate the city’s most important issues.
Seven members from each board attended, as well as Lance Bailey, director of community services, and Planning Manager Judy Surber.
No action was taken at the meeting.
At the town meeting, attendees were given cards and asked to indicated the two issues that are of most importance to them.
The city received 102 cards, with transition and community resilience scoring the highest with 47 dots.
Dots on other cards were 42 for housing, 40 for jobs and the economy, 20 for transportation, 19 for quality of life and eight for “other,” which included environmental health, establishing a maritime memorial and saving the Lincoln Building.
Using the top four issues as an example, Councilwoman Deborah Stinson said the challenge isn’t to look at them separately “but to determine if they are all interconnected.
“We don’t want to get so prescriptive that we box ourselves in when we are writing policy, since the new regulations will deal with issues we don’t know about yet.”
City Councilwoman Michelle Sandoval advocated selecting a single goal, an action that is not necessarily connected to the comprehensive plan.
“At one point, we should get behind one major thing,” she said. “Anything we’ve accomplished has taken years.”
Mayor David King said the comprehensive plan should be brought up to date quickly “so future ideas have a place to land.”
The ratings from the town hall meeting are to be used to update the comprehensive plan, which is due for completion in June, but doing so can follow an indirect route, according to City Attorney Steve Gross.
“The purpose of the comprehensive plan is not to set city policy but to comply with the Growth Management Act,” Gross said.
“If our purpose is to provide jobs by using the comp plan, we need to create regulations that make it easy for businesses to locate here and hire people.”
Sandoval said the city does not create jobs.
“In order to support wish-list items, we well need to loosen or tighten the regulations that implement the strategies that support the vision that people have expressed,” Sandoval said.
Stinson said a significant improvement in one area can take care of the others.
“I’d rather see salaries go up than housing prices go down,” she said.
“If people are making a good wage, they will be able to afford more expensive housing.”
The next step, according to Bailey, is for city staff to develop a work plan that lists all of the proposed comprehensive plan amendments.
That list will be sent to the Planning Commission for discussion and recommendation and then to the City Council for approval.
This won’t take place before October, Bailey said.
There will be a public comment period after every major step.
The approved work plan then will be used to develop the final amendments, which are due for completion in June.
The road map for this process has not been determined, with the possibility that another town meeting could be scheduled in the spring.
Sandoval doesn’t oppose that idea but hopes the meeting is scheduled “after we have something to say,” she said Tuesday.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
