SEQUIM — While the City Council and Planning Commission combine efforts toward a required update of the city’s comprehensive plan, one of its provisions may disappear.
The council earlier this month proposed removing the plan’s historic and cultural resources section, which places importance on buildings and sites that date to Sequim’s early days.
A concerned citizen contacted the state Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation, an offshoot of the Community Trade and Economic Development Department, which oversees the Growth Management Act passed in 1990 by state legislators.
The act requires precise land-use planning by cities and counties.
And though it doesn’t require either group to adopt historic-preservation policies, doing so is a positive for any area, said Greg Griffith deputy state historic preservation officer.
“We advocate it because it contributes to the quality of life in communities,” Griffith said in a phone interview Friday.
“It also has more tangible benefits to the economy in that it helps streamline the development process.”
Griffith said developers looking at land sites should have access to identified historical sites on either the national or state historical registry so they can ward off challenges to their plans if necessary.
He also said there are misperceptions about the obligations that follow maintaining such a list.
Contrary to what council members discussed at their Oct. 6 work session, he said, neither governing bodies nor private property owners are required to maintain sites identified as historically or culturally important.
