The Sequim Planning Commission on June 3 reviewed the draft "Community Character" chapter of the city’s comprehensive plan, offered targeted edits to language and examples, and received a status update from planning staff on contracts and grant work tied to the overall update.

Carla, staff lead for the comprehensive plan update, told commissioners that Leland Consulting has been signed to perform the land capacity analysis, housing needs assessment and economic and housing market studies. She also said staff recently submitted the major deliverables for the Washington State Commerce planning grant and the Climate Planning Grant; only one grant deliverable remained outstanding.

Commissioners methodically reviewed the chapter pages. Suggested edits included removing the adjective "diverse" where commissioners said it was redundant (for example in a policy that already used "intergenerational"), and removing an explicit callout naming The Granary to avoid singling out a private property in policy text. Commissioners also asked staff to provide a clear graphic or map defining what the plan means by “downtown” (several commissioners suggested Fifth Avenue to Brown Street as a working descriptor) and discussed whether policy language should call out downtown or a broader set of economic hubs and corridors.

Carla and Travis said the Community Character chapter is intended to work in tandem with the land use element and other plan chapters. Staff described an outreach and review schedule that will route chapters to boards with related purviews — for example the Arts Commission and Parks and Recreation Board — and will color-code edits from each reviewing body so commissioners can track changes.

On environmental review, staff said the project team had not yet finalized the SEPA/EIS approach; they anticipated a decision on environmental-review scope and whether to pursue a supplemental EIS by September.

Commissioners also discussed the commission’s annual work-plan process for forwarding priorities to council. Several commissioners said the commission has not consistently used the work-plan process in prior years and recommended scheduling a work-plan meeting in July so staff can evaluate budget and staffing impacts ahead of council’s budget process. Staff agreed to prepare draft code language for consideration that would set a clear annual deadline and to circulate draft language to the commission.

Commissioners thanked staff for the chapter and for progress on grants and consultant contracting. Carla said the draft climate and resiliency chapter was complete and would be reviewed next by an internal sustainability committee before being brought to the commission.