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Oak Harbor principal planner outlines 2025 comprehensive plan update: 5,500 housing units, longer EIS timeline
Summary
City principal planner presented the scope and schedule for Oak Harbor’s 2025 comprehensive plan update, explaining state population projection rules, a county allocation that requires the city to plan for 5,500 additional housing units, and the likelihood of a city-level Environmental Impact Statement that will push adoption into 2026.
Kat Kamak, principal planner for the City of Oak Harbor, briefed the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission on Aug. 11 about the city’s comprehensive plan update and how it ties to parks and recreation planning.
Kamak said the state’s Office of Financial Management provides population-projection ranges (low, medium, high) and that the countywide planning policies typically steer jurisdictions to the medium projection. For the current cycle, that distribution means Oak Harbor must plan for about 5,500 additional housing units across the city and its urban growth area over the next 20 years.
Why it matters: the comprehensive plan determines future land-use rules, density and height limits, and what infrastructure and services (water, sewer, transportation, parks) the city must accommodate. That in turn affects financing needs and the timing of projects such as parks, trails and a potential recreation center.
Kamak told the commission that planning for the larger housing target will likely trigger a city Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), a process that lengthens the schedule. Instead of completing the plan in 2025, staff now expect adoption to extend into mid‑2026 to accommodate the EIS.
Kamak said key elements of the update include: • a 20‑year population and housing allocation anchored to state projections and countywide planning policies; • transportation, water, sewer and parks plans pulled together within the comprehensive plan; • potential changes to development regulations (for example, raising building height limits in some zones) to allow more housing in areas with existing services.
Commissioners asked how parks and recreation responsibilities and resources will be coordinated with the county, the North Whidbey Parks and Recreation District and the school district. Kamak said interlocal agreements are the usual mechanism and noted the city is already discussing allocations and services with Island County, the planning commission and the Department of Commerce.
Parks staff and commissioners also described related work now underway — updating the parks plan, an urban forestry master plan, an arts plan and a recreation‑center feasibility study — and said those studies will feed into the comprehensive plan to show how park services will scale with higher-density housing.
Next steps: staff will present draft policy and mapping work to the planning commission and city council workshops in coming months and hold public outreach, comment periods and open houses before the EIS and final adoption.
