By SCOTT RASMUSSEN

County reporter

The Housing and Land-use elements of San Juan County’s Comprehensive Plan will need to be revised and updated by the end of the year under a legal settlement endorsed last week by the County Council.

The end-of-the-year deadline, which, according to Prosecuting Attorney Randy Gaylord, must be ratified by the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board as well, brings to an end a lawsuit filed against the county by Orcas Island architect John Campbell.

A longtime member of Homes for Islanders’ board of directors, Campbell contested an earlier approval of the first phase of expansion of the Friday Harbor urban growth area as a means of forcing the county to produce the updates. Counties like San Juan that plan under the state Growth Management Act must periodically update portions of their comprehensive plans. The required update of the land-use and housing elements, as well as the county critical areas ordinance, are already overdue.

Campbell remains skeptical enough available land exists in the three county urban growth areas, including Friday Harbor, to accommodate either the number or diversity of people expected to be living in the islands by 2020 and beyond. In addition, he said, changes in zoning may be needed to allow for development in assorted and sometimes competing land-use categories.

“In Eastsound, the county is continually trying to demonstrate that the existing urban growth area boundaries are big enough,” Campbell said. “Right now, there’s only one parcel for sale which a developer could build 20-plus homes on.”

The update, Campbell said, will force the town and county to reconcile their differences over San Juan Island’s population projections and the amount of affordable housing which will be needed within Friday Harbor. County officials expect that roughly half the influx of new residents will reside in the town.

“The town and county are going to have to come into agreement but it’s going to be a difficult discussion,” he said. “Capital facilities are the problem and the question is who’s going to pay for them.”

Ron Henrickson, director of the county Community Development and Planning Department, said that meeting the deadline will put CDPD to the test. Even though the department is now fully staffed, he said that assignments and priorities will have to be reshuffled in order to meet the end-of-the-year deadline.

“The housing we probably would’ve gotten to, but the (land use) element probably not,” Henrickson said. “We’ll just have to squeeze it in.”