Washougal council work session: comprehensive plan overhaul, new state mandates and tight county timeline outlined

Jessica Herzig, a consultant with DAO, briefed the Washougal City Council at a March 10 work session on a phased work plan for the city’s comprehensive plan update, laying out required code changes, likely topics for separate work sessions and a tight county-driven regulatory schedule. The presentation focused on four principal updates — land use, housing, economic development and a new climate element — and the secondary updates that will follow into the summer and fall.

Why it matters: The update must respond both to recent state legislative requirements and to Clark County’s schedule for a countywide environmental impact statement (EIS). These external deadlines shape what Washougal must adopt and when; staff warned the council the timeline leaves little room for delay and that coordination failures at the county level could complicate local adoption before the end-of-year deadline.

Herzig said the “land use element’s getting a pretty big overhaul” and that the land use map and supporting policies will be revised to reflect population and housing targets. She described housing work as tightly linked to that land-use map and to two state bills she referenced by transcript text as “House Bill 11 10” and “House Bill 12 20,” which the city must address in its housing element. On the housing subject she said, “middle housing is a big workhorse for us to get at both the housing,…