Okanogan County planning panel advances draft to require named roads at two homes, authorizes limited drone use for 911 addressing

The Okanogan County Planning Commission voted to send a draft revision of county addressing rules to a 30-day public comment period, including a change that would require private driveways with two residences to be named as roads and a provision authorizing the county GIS division to operate unmanned aircraft systems to support mapping and 9-1-1 addressing.

The proposed changes were introduced at a work session where planning staff described the need to reduce address confusion for emergency responders and to modernize how primary access points are determined. Planning staff said the code change would replace the current practice of adding lettered suffixes (A, B, C) on the same driveway and instead assign numbered addresses measured from the primary access road.

Staff emphasized why the mapping change matters: “the Okanagan County GIS division is authorized to operate unmanned aircraft systems for the purpose of supporting mapping, land management, addressing, and spatial data collection,” the staff member said during the meeting. The staff member also said the drone photos would…