Title
Development Code Amendments for Comprehensive Plan Update Consistency
Recommendation
City Manager Recommendation:
Briefing only; no action requested.
Report
Issue:
Washington's Growth Management Act (GMA) requires that development regulations be "consistent with and implement the comprehensive plan." Revised Code of Washington 36.70A.040. The City Council is expected to adopt an updated version of Olympia's Comprehensive Plan later this year. In anticipation of that action, the staff proposed and the Planning Commission is reviewing a set of development code amendments to maintain consistency between the regulations and the updated Plan. This briefing is intended to provide the Committee with an overview of that activity in advance of specific amendments being presented to the full Council in the coming months.
Staff Contact:
Todd Stamm, Principal Planner, Community Planning and Development Department, 360.753.8597
Presenter:
Todd Stamm, Principal Planner, Community Planning and Development Department
Background and Analysis:
Although GMA requires 'consistency' between the Comprehensive Plan and development regulations, the Act does not specify how quickly regulations must be amended when the Plan is revised. The City is seeking to minimize any period of inconsistency between the current regulations and the updated Plan now being considered by the City Council. Thus, as the updated Plan was being reviewed by the Planning Commission, the staff identified regulatory changes that might be needed to maintain such consistency. In 2013 the Council directed that the Commission and staff begin work on those code amendments so that they could be brought before the Council as soon as possible after the updated Plan was adopted.
That effort resulted in potential amendments being classified as either:
1) Probably needed for consistency and resulting from relatively noncontroversial amendments to the Plan, i.e., those Plan amendmen...
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