Planning commission examines comprehensive plan update, questions county growth allocations and housing counts

The Woodland Planning Commission spent most of its meeting reviewing the periodic comprehensive plan update and the draft housing chapter, and commissioners pressed staff and the consultant on how population and housing numbers were calculated and how those figures should be applied to the city’s Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) and capital‑facilities planning.

Travis, planning staff, said the planning team had posted updated draft chapters and that the housing chapter had been posted to the city website the morning of the meeting. He summarized which chapters the city planner had updated or received from consultants and noted the transportation chapter had not yet been submitted. "We received a copy of the housing chapter this morning, and that was posted on the website and emailed to all of you," he said.

A central point of discussion was growth‑projection methodology and county allocations. Staff reviewed historical growth assumptions — noting sewer and water plans had used a 2.3% annual growth rate — and said the consultant had proposed a 2.7% planning figure after taking averages of several datasets, including Office of Financial Management estimates. Staff also described a county‑share approach discussed with Clark and Cowlitz counties: Clark County staff had suggested Woodland take 1/10th of a percent of the county allocation (about 109 housing units under that calculation), while draft preliminary material from Cowlitz County suggested higher allocations to Woodland in its first pass (staff said one draft distributed county‑wide housing totals that implied Woodland could be assigned roughly 2,000 additional units under that methodology). Travis told commissioners the state Commerce office had advised there was no simple tool to transfer an allocation between counties and said the city would plan in good faith and continue coordinating with the counties and the consultant.

Commissioners raised several follow‑up issues. Commissioner David Simpson asked whether the city should count year‑round RV occupants in the housing inventory and whether that counting applied to land inside city limits or within the UGB; Simpson also asked how impact fees and school enrollments should be treated for mobile residents. Travis said the city currently classifies long‑term RV use as transient housing and does not normally count it as conventional housing stock for urban‑growth accounting, but he noted the comp plan update and upcoming housing‑capacity work would examine whether those units could be counted as emergency housing supply. "Technically, it is not considered a residential use, and they are considered transient housing, so they are not typically counted in the urban growth boundary or urban growth calculations," Travis said. He added that staff was exploring whether the city could count such locations as emergency housing in its housing capacity work.

The commission also identified data inconsistencies that staff committed to check. Members pointed out a land‑use table that showed an assumed annual population growth rate of 0.72% in one chart, which commissioners flagged as inconsistent with other documents and with recent local development activity. Travis acknowledged the potential error and said he would ask the consultant to reconcile the numbers and check calculations in the housing and population tables.

Other topics raised during the review included: the need to identify and plan for emergency housing (staff cited a Cowlitz County draft that estimated Woodland might need capacity for 42 emergency housing units); the consultant’s treatment of household‑size assumptions (staff noted consultants used varied persons‑per‑household figures for different analyses); new state requirements and policy changes such as environmental‑justice considerations and a 2022 RCW requiring local development regulations to allow siting of some organic material management facilities (staff said he would seek legal clarification on what the city must adopt); and historic‑preservation policy options (the commission discussed whether to keep goals encouraging historic‑preservation work even though the city does not maintain a local preservation commission).

Commissioners asked staff to distribute the complete draft plan at the next meeting and requested time to review chapters in advance. Travis asked commissioners to provide comments to the consultant before the end of the consultant contract period so the consultant could complete the final draft; he said staff would post a full draft in the coming month and that the public outreach record already included multiple prior hearings and open houses going back to 2018. Commissioners were also alerted to practical planning questions raised in the discussion: counting RV or mobile‑home residents for school enrollment and water/sewer demand, reconciling county allocation methods, and whether some development‑activity thresholds (for example large fill/grading operations) should be regulated differently.

No final commission decision on the comprehensive plan content was taken at the meeting. Staff set a near‑term request for commissioners: read the posted draft chapters and submit written comments before the consultant finishes its contract so the planning team can finalize a single draft for the commission’s next review.