It’s crunch time for San Juan County and the pending update of its critical areas ordinance.
With the painstaking process of crafting its own “best available science” in the rear-view mirror and that document available as a guide, the County Council must now determine whether today’s land-use regulations are sufficient enough to protect the county’s critical areas, or whether changes will be required.
That next step begins June 13-14 as part of a two-day workshop, at which time the council the Planning Commission will consider a long and weighty list of analysis, recommendations and regulatory options developed by county staff and the consultants that played a key role in synthesizing the county’s catalog of best available science, which was approved by the council May 24 without dissent.
Choices will need to be made, according to county Planning Coordinator Shireene Hale, in those instances where existing regulations fall short of protecting critical areas in a manner that’s consistent with best available science.
“The council will have some very tough policy decisions to make in giving guidance to staff about what they want to see in the regulations,” Hale said. “It should be a very interesting full day and a half.”
Like all counties who’s long-range planning is dictated by the state’s Growth Management Act, San Juan is tasked with updating rules that apply to its critical areas, which, as defined by the state, include wetlands, fish and wildlife habitat, aquifer recharge areas, frequently flooded zones and geologically hazardous areas. That update is nearly six years overdue.
The state requires local jurisdictions — counties, cities and towns — to use the lens of “best available science” in reviewing and updating rules on critical areas. San Juan County’s are regulated under its Environmentally Sensitive Ordinance, enacted in 1998 and ushered in along with the county Comprehensive Plan.
Following in the footsteps of Island County, the council opted more than a year ago to sidestep portions of state-provided BAS, hired a team of consultants and then launched into generating a body of best available science that might better account for the islands’ rural landscape and its unique environmental features. The council’s intent at that time was, in part, to avoid following a “one-size-fits-all” approach in favor of developing a regimen of site-specific and “tailored” buffers, and setbacks, that would apply to existing and future development.
Councilman Richard Fralick, Orcas West, said the county is ready to head into the final phase of the CAO update now that the synthesis of its best available is complete, even with a few flaws in the document here and there.
“It’s not a perfect document, but we know that if we waited for it to be perfect it would be a process that would probably outlive us all,” Fralick said of the collection of best available science. “It’s a good milestone in what’s been a very long process and one which we can move forward.”
To view the county’s best available science, visit the county Website, www.co.san-juan.wa.us/index.aspx; click first on “Department”, then “Community Development and Planning”, followed by “Critical Areas Ordinance”, and finally “BAS Synthesis” and/or “Notices & Documents”.
