Island County schedules public hearing after businesses complain emergency moratorium blocks minor commercial repairs

Island County commissioners scheduled a public hearing for 10 a.m. June 3 to take public comment on the emergency moratorium the board adopted April 15 and to consider next steps after business owners and staff raised concerns about how the moratorium has been applied.

Staff said the emergency moratorium was intended to pause new, incompatible low-density development while the county updates its code, not to block small repairs or routine commercial permits. Emily Neff of Island County long‑range planning told the board that during implementation the planning department had to decline review of a minor building permit for a commercial property because the ordinance does not include an exception for commercial repairs.

The public hearing will allow the board to hear evidence about the moratorium’s current language. Neff said the prosecuting attorney had been consulted and that, if the board wants changes after the hearing, it can direct staff to draft a new (non‑emergency) moratorium. That new moratorium would follow the county’s standard public process — work session, regular session, consent calendar and public hearing — and, if adopted, would repeal the emergency moratorium.

At the meeting the board discussed a timeline to address the most immediate concern — a narrow commercial exception to allow repair and replacement of existing equipment — and asked whether staff could prepare language quickly. Neff said staff could prepare draft commercial‑exception language and could bring it to a work session as soon as June 4 if the board has capacity on that agenda, and that other concerns raised at the June 3 hearing could be folded into a draft if the board directed staff to do so.

A business owner, identifying herself as Lisa Boy, spoke during public comment and said she owns a car wash that has been working with the county since applying for a pre‑application in December and meeting for a pre‑app on Feb. 6. She said county staff told her she must apply for an access permit and provide water‑availability documentation even though water has been connected at the site for more than 30 years. She said the county sent a letter indicating staff would not review her permit for roughly a year because of the moratorium, and she asked the board to “speed up the process” so she could open by early June.

The board voted to schedule the June 3 public hearing on the emergency moratorium. Staff recommended holding that hearing on the existing emergency language to gather public input first; if the board later chooses to change the moratorium it would do so through the regular (non‑emergency) public process and could repeal the emergency moratorium at that time.

Neff and the board emphasized that the emergency moratorium itself remains in effect unless the board repeals it, and that any regular moratorium replacing it would be subject to the county’s standard notice and hearing requirements.

Board members and staff said they would work to line up agendas so that draft language can be reviewed promptly after the public hearing and, if the board so directs, be moved through a work session and back to the regular meeting schedule for consideration.

The board took the scheduling vote at the meeting; no final change to the moratorium language was made that day.