Growth Management Act

The Growth Management Act  requires all cities and counties in Washington to adopt regulations protecting "critical areas in order to preserve the natural environment, wildlife habitats, and sources of fresh drinking water". Critical areas regulation ensures public safety by limiting development in areas prone to natural hazards like floods and landslides.

An excellent study was done as a joint project between Washington State University and the University of Washington and is housed at the William Rucklehouse Center. Read this to understand more about the Growth Management Act.

 The Critical Areas Ordinance will be updated in conjunction with the 2024 Comprehensive Plan Update, with adoption planned in June of 2024.           

Critical Areas Ordinance Update 2024

The Department of Community Development is conducting a periodic review of the County's Critical Areas Ordinance, Kitsap County Code (KCC) Title 19, as required by RCW 36.70A.130. The Critical Areas Ordinance, KCC Title 19, was last reviewed and updated in 2017. Critical Areas Ordinances must be evaluated and, if needed, revised every ten years per the schedule provided in RCW 36.70A.130 (http://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=36.70A.130). The Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO) will be reviewed and updated to ensure compliance with state mandates, maintain consistency with local regulations and the Comprehensive Plan, and provide predictability and clarifications.       source:  www.kitsapgov.com.   Critical Areas Ordinance Update 2024

Two environmental groups are currently taking part in the update process to the Critcal Area Ordinance, Futurewise and Kitsap Environmental Coalition. A first round of working group meetings took place recently in which participants discussed the Best Available Sciences Summary report and Consistency and Gap Analysis report documents provided to the county by DCG Watershed. These working group meetings included experts from Washington Fish and Wildlife as well as from the Washington Department of Ecology.  These meetings are hosted by Kitsap County and are open to the public in a webinar mode with limited comment or chat participation.  The Kitsap CAO Update page has information about upcoming meetings and how the public can participate. The critical area map found on that page as of this writing (August 2023) is a PDF file that is densely packed and in need of being transfered to something more user-friendly like other Graphic Information System (GIS) tools the county offers to citizen.  Also of note is that the delineation of wetlands and streams has relied upon outdated technology from the National Wetlands Inventory.  Part of the suggestions during round one of the working groups was to make use of LiDAR data. 

To learn more about Washington's LiDAR data see the WA DNR LiDAR portal. This technology bounces lasers from airplanes to penetrate the foliage and "see" the ground below on the laser bounce back to the airplanes.  

An additional guideline that is being proposed to many county critical area ordinances, based on best available science (BAS),  is to replace standard buffer widths surrounding streams.  These alternative buffer zones, called riparian management zones (RMZs) utilize a concept of  "site specific tree height". The dominant tree's height at a 200-year stage, sets the footage of this alternative buffer width.  Much of our county is filled with Douglas Fir with a roughly 200-foot height to be used. That could determine the required buffer of 200 feet, instead of a smaller "standard" width.

This is the Kitsap County Critical Areas Map 

- Bond Road is color coded as a MODERATE Hazard area (pink area on map, denoting Erosion, Landslide, Seismic hazards)
- Critical wetlands are marked in the Bond Road area requested for rezoning. 

-This property is close to Gamble Creek, an important salmon spawning creek which feeds into Gamble Bay, which is the ancestral and current shellfish harvesting site for the Port Gamble S’Klallam tribe.

-The proposed site of the higher density rezone is a critical aquifer recharge area.

Property rezoning of the Stottlemeyer site (upzoning or residential zoning; and additional components added by adding commercial, multiple sports and recreation with YMCA) goes against all GMA principals: as not necessary to accommodate residential population targets, and with added commercial components starts the north end back on that slippery slope of approval of sprawl again. Rezoning in this area, not adjacent to any UGA boundary and with the expectation of a multi-use sports complex in the future could set a precedent. The County would have created a situation where they would have no rational to deny other development along the Bond corridor, a location with degrading level of service capacity today and no transit capabilities.

No YMCA’s have been located in rural areas, they all have been sited in UGAs or cities. To accommodate a YMCA alone would require major traffic improvements and most likely a whole new intersection; infrastructure the County does not have the capacity to fund and would increase the cost of the YMCA/sports center by millions. The large funding lift of $60 million or more for YMCA; multiple 100s of thousands of dollars for 16-20 fields, all raised by donations or grants, is a prospect that would take years. Land Use decisions in 2024 should not be made assuming such projects will materialize. Utilizing land near existing Urban Grown Areas is logical and important. New users will be primarily living in these UGA. Also, there is so little government for urban services (roads, lighting, sidewalks, transit connectivity) building these facilities should be where those urban facilities would most likely be funded.

The George’s Corner LAMRID has two parcels that, while containing some areas constrained by wetlands, still have 6 or more acres in each of the undeveloped confines of the LAMRID (SE corner and NW Corner) that could be used for field construction. Using the Rotary field dimension table information, mixing and matching field/’ballpark’ types and adding appropriate amounts of parking to accommodate 3-4 fields w/parking could be possible on these parcels. Locating some fields in these areas, each with access to existing arterials (Miller Bay/Hansville highway) and transit seem to be a worthy area to consider. Also, such locations are close to gathering spaces (restaurants) for teams after games as has been mentioned as important.

Links  

This checklist is an excellent guide to form questions and comments during Kitsap County Comprehensive Plan comment period.

(Puget Sound National Estuary Sound Choices Check list 2023).