Planning staff to take population projections to commissioners; critical-areas update will use DFW site-potential tree-height mapping

Kittitas County planning staff said they will ask the Board of County Commissioners to adopt the county’s medium population projections at an April 15 meeting and then begin land-capacity analysis and open houses, starting May 17 in Ellensburg and Cle Elum.

Staff also updated the commission on the county’s periodic update of its critical-areas code. The update will rely on Department of Fish & Wildlife (DFW) modeling of site-potential tree height and other best-available-science inputs; staff said adopting those models could expand regulated buffers and affect buildable land in the upper county.

“we went in front of, COG on March 19, and we got a recommendation to approval for approval on those population projections,” Jeremy (staff member) told commissioners, describing the regional review and the plan to present the medium projection to the Board of County Commissioners. Staff said several cities raised concerns…