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KEC Letter to Extend Review PROS Plan 2025
Dear Board of County Commissioners:
Kitsap Environmental Coalition is requesting a public comment period extension until the end of March for three major reasons.
This is the first time the public is seeing a draft of the 2025 PROS Plan.
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The DRAFT released for public review on February 11 is not an update, but a full rewrite of the PROS Plan, with several radical changes from 2018 that require sufficient time for a serious review by the public and important stakeholders. The document is overdue by months, but that should not short circuit reviews of a draft that should have been done at earlier stages of development. […] -
Arborwood Development Agreement – Extension
Arborwood Development Agreement – Extension
The Public Hearing is scheduled for February 3rd, 5:30 pm, for the County Commissioners to decide whether to extend the Development Agreement for the Arborwood project in Kingston. The Commissioners need to hear from the community, the residents who will be most impacted by this large-scale 751-unit subdivision.
Speak up now, before it is too late. …
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RCW 42.30.010
RCW 42.30.010 Legislative declaration.
The legislature finds and declares that all public commissions, boards, councils, committees, subcommittees, departments, divisions, offices, and all other public agencies of this state and subdivisions thereof exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business. It is the intent of this chapter that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.
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Keep Kitsap Green
Keep Kitsap Green!
Your Kitsap County Commissioners are finalizing a Comprehensive Plan that will shape the county’s future for the next twenty years.
Email them now and let them know you want to adopt and enforce a Comprehensive Plan that will:
• Protect the environment
• Preserve a healthy balance of natural, rural, and urban areas.
• Advance Kitsap County through thoughtful progress that benefits all who live here – including wildlife.Email: Kitsapcommissioners@kitsap.gov
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Topics to Consider for Comprehensive Plan Comments
Here are some topics to consider when composing your own comments to the Commissioners for the Public Hearing on October 28, 2024, 5:30pm.
1) Add Natural Character to the 2025 Year of the Rural focus: We are pleased that the County did not rezone in rural areas this year and plans to address both rural rezoning and farmland issues in 2025. Please expand the 2025 focus to include attention to nature as a whole to make significant strides in protecting our environment in both rural and urban areas. […]
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Comment Letter on Critical Areas Ordinance
Dear Commissioners Garrido, Walters, and Rolfes,
We are happy to provide a summary of our July 22nd comments as Commissioner Rolfes requested. We seek protection of critical areas and buffers and effective enforcement of the Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO).
Towards those goals, we present a checklist of items that presently reduce the effectiveness of, or even block, the Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO). These items are mostly external to the Ordinance itself and cannot be fully addressed by amending the code. Nonetheless, they need to be corrected for the CAO to be effective.[…]
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Comments re: KC Public Works on the TIPS
Reviewing the draft report on the North Sound to Olympics Trail Study (NSTO), two things stand out:
Public Comments, Appendix A
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And overall project cost, Appendix F
Reading the public comments in Appendix A confirms that there is overwhelming community opposition to going through North Kitsap Heritage Park, even from people who ride bicycles. […] -
Critical Areas Ordinance – Comments Part 6
9. NO NET LOSS OF ECOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS, NO ADVERSE IMPACT, and MONITORING
The current CAO has two performance criteria for wetland buffer decreases: (1) “provide as great or greater functions and values as…under the standard buffer” (also referred to as “equivalent functions and values”) and (2) “no adverse impact” for buffer averaging. […}
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Critical Areas Ordinance – Comments Part 5
7. SPECIALISTS AND REPORTS
There are multiple ecological functions of buffers. Evaluation of functions may require expertise in wetlands, streams, habitat, soil science, hydrology, hydrogeology, and/or stormwater.
Currently, the department appears to rely entirely on wetland reports and habitat management plans from wetland specialists and fish/wildlife biologists, respectively. However, their expertise may not extend to all the technical areas necessary for adequate evaluation of buffer functions. […}
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Critical Areas Ordinance – Comments Part 4
5. BOUNDARY MARKING AND MEMORIALIZATION
For critical area or buffer boundaries to be honored in the future they must be memorialized for future owners and residents. Current code lacks such provisions and transgression of boundaries is not uncommon. It is too tempting and easy for a current owner to extend a garden or yard by importing fill. The current requirement allowing wood posts, even if treated, is only a short-term solution. […}
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