Check from King County for $1943.49 to reimburse expenses.
$6222.37 in the County account
$98.51 in the checking account

Stephanie W. - County heard that citizens wanted more flexibility in the ordinance. As a result, Stewardship Planning and Farm Planning have been added to the proposal to address this need. Regulatory flexibility and Incentives Programs are the most challenging things to creative in regulations.

A matrix comparison between the existing and proposed Ordinance had been requested. A 13 page document of the side-by-side comparison was presented and handed out to those present.

Dave D - Asked for more time to be allowed for the public to review and respond to the draft proposal. He also asked the reason for the updates. Ms. Warden replied that the current ordianance is 10 yars old, and that even if substantive changes were not needed, there were many instances of "housekeeping" nature to be cleaned up. Other significant factors are the recent changes precipitated by the state Growth Management Act (GMA) and other areas the ordinance was supposed to address such as:

Wetlands - some items in proposed update
CARA - not addressed in proposed update
Fish and Wildlife - needed some standards where presently there are none
Frequent Flooding - some items in proposed update
Geological Hazard - some items in proposed update

Best Available Science had not been documented before, so the CAO did not meet the State requirements. These definitions were the result of a collaborative effort of research and drafting by Daryl G.'s team, Basin Stewards and Capital Projects teams.

Q. Is there a County deadline to adopt and implement the proposed CAO?
A. With the Comprehensive Plan Update cycle, the CAO must be addressed because we have to have them balanced under GMA and there are currently conflicts between the two. Particularly in the areas of stormwater and land use - different issues are addressed in different parts of both sets of code, so multiple changes are needed to bring everything into coherent agreement.

Some basic points of the proposed ordinance:

• "Dual track" is available in some areas
• Whatever agriculture activities are being done now can continue; adding or changing activities will trigger some of the new regulations, but there is some flexibility
• Implementation of a Stewardship Plan automatically qualifies for PBRS.
• Need to better address ways to preserve existing natural features - especially to allow a natural way to handle this rain
• Several strategies to facilitate preservation - buying properties, regulation of environmental impacts, incentives to preserve and protect, Transfer of Development Rights

Q. Are you focusing all your pressures on some groups or are you trying to find ways to spread it around - i.e. cities?
A. Cities are separate and have their own departments and laws to address this

Best Available Science (BAS) is the best attempt to find out exactly how to best protect ares. Even under the proposed 65/10 policy, some degradation occurs. (some science supports 85/3)

Daryl G. - Tailoring regulations on a site specific basis will be hard because it has never been done that way.

Stephanie W. - Only about 10 counties are required to use the BAS standard under GMA. This obligation is not to make the rules more stringent for aquatic areas and wetlands, but to carefully define what actually works.

Some of the agriculture regulations are actually looser, but that is based on BAS too.

With the updates, county and state policies will be compatible so that you will not have to go to the expense, delay and effort of getting the state permits for cleaning waterways designated as agricultural ditches as soon as the 2005 growing season.

Daryl G. - There is a new section relating to Critical Aquifer Recharge Areas. It will be sent to the UAC.

Q. Will code enforcement staff be increased?
A. No, but cross-training across internal DDES and other county departments will continue.

Q. What has preparation of these updates cost?
A. Difficult to assess. All personnel involved continued to work regular assignments - printing - etc.

Q. What will the costs be to implement?
A. Permit review costs now to be held to initial estimate. There is also significantly more free technical assistance available.

Q. - Are the new regulations burdensome?
A. - To the extent that they are different from what has been in effect - everybody will have to learn the new rules. The 65/10 requirement is new, but there is more flexibility to offset that.

Q. Reduced taxes to pay for actions for the public good is a good step, but isn’t there a conflict of interest in that DDES is funded through the cost of the permits it issues?
A. There are hourly fees for some services, but most are at a flat fee. The formulas used to predict needed budget/fee levels are adopted by County Council. There are also statutory timelines, so if we miss the deadline, we can't continue to charge. These things keep lid on costs to applicants.

Q. - Why can't a standardized building plan be run through the permitting process at DDES and then made available to anybody so that every single structure has to go through the whole process
A. Stephanie W. - there is a program called BASICS. Under this program, a builder submits a standard house plan and then that plan is reusable after it is reviewed and approved. Currently, only residential units are addressed. It could be possible to extend this program to include non-residential structure such as carports and outbuildings.

Q. There seems to be a difference between Urban and Rural - Are developers allowed to flatten forest to build inside the UGB?
A. Restrictions inside UGB require a Special Overlay in the Zoning code. These are rare.

Elections Committee (chair - David R.)

 2003.10.15

 2003.10.15