Thurston County Planning Commission adopts new chapter order for Thurston 2045; discusses housing, agriculture and ownership study

The Thurston County Planning Commission voted to adopt a new chapter order for the draft Thurston 2045 comprehensive plan and asked staff to implement the reordering before the package goes to the Board of County Commissioners.

The vote came after public comments and a lengthy discussion of housing, agriculture and related policies. Commissioner Pesinger moved to take “Option 3” for chapter order and to implement the change prior to forwarding the plan to the BOCC; the motion was seconded and approved. Commissioners recorded at least one nay and one or more abstentions during the roll call; staff said the reordering will require a careful cross-reference scrub because chapters contain many internal references.

Why it matters: reorganizing the plan changes the flow of background information readers see when the plan is released for public hearing and affects internal cross references staff must update. Commissioners said moving climate, land use, environment and natural resources higher in the document could help frame later chapters such as housing and transportation.

Public comments and code edits

Two members of the public spoke on topics that feed directly into the plan revisions. Loretta Sipnan urged commissioners to move the plan’s 5% rural-growth target into a higher-priority position in the housing chapter and to change passive wording, asking that the plan say “implement” rather than “consider” new strategies to reduce excess rural housing capacity. Sipnan said the SEIS (Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement) contains strategies—land conservation, lot reconfiguration and treating best farmland as critical areas—that staff should fold into the plan’s implementation list.

Kyler Danielson, who identified himself as an employee of Lakeside Industries, asked staff to change the rural resource industrial use list to include asphalt alongside concrete products because other sections of the code apply similar regulations to asphalt. “I would recommend that that language be changed to be consistent with other sections of the code and include asphalt as well,” Danielson said during public comment.

Commissioner and staff direction

Commissioners debated the order of chapters and the workload involved in reordering. Maya (planning staff) told the commission that moving chapters will be an additional lift because of cross-references, but she said staff can implement the change and then perform a cross-reference scrub before the final public-hearing draft.

On agriculture and natural resources, commissioners discussed policies to support long-term farming, reduce regulatory barriers, and encourage local ownership and resilience. Commissioners expressed support for “carrot” (incentive) language rather than prescriptive restrictions; several asked staff to add policy language that would “encourage and simplify the process for local ownership of agricultural land” and continue or expand existing county support programs (for example, coordination with the Thurston Conservation District and funding navigation assistance). Commissioners also asked staff to reference the Voluntary Stewardship Program report as a related plan rather than embed exhaustive examples in the comp plan text.

Housing and outside capital

Several commissioners pushed back on a highly simplified introductory sentence about housing that attributed rising costs only to supply and demand. Commissioners agreed to broaden the language to reflect that competition for housing comes from multiple sources—population growth, higher-income in-movers, and nonresident or investment ownership—and to add policy language to better understand the ownership profile of properties in Thurston County. The commission directed staff to draft a non-prescriptive (“squishy”) policy encouraging study or improved data collection on nonresident ownership and outside capital impacts and to include a recommendation in the commission’s transmittal to the BOCC asking for a future study or grant-funded analysis of absentee and investor ownership trends.

What staff will do next

Staff said they will: (1) implement the chapter reorder (Option 3) and perform a cross-reference scrub before producing the public‑hearing draft; (2) add draft policy language to the housing and agricultural chapters encouraging reduced barriers to local ownership and continued support for agricultural viability; and (3) include a recommendation to the BOCC to pursue a study of nonresident/absentee ownership and ownership patterns that affect housing affordability. The SEIS report card remains posted on the Thurston 2045 website, and staff reminded the public that the SEIS comment period is open until March 30.

Ending

The commission scheduled its next regular meetings and added elections for a new chair to the March 19 agenda (the commission will nominate and elect officers on the schedule staff provided). Staff also noted an appeal had been filed (Futurewise) on long-term agriculture mapping; that appeal will move through prehearing processes prior to a hearings examiner schedule.

Quotes used in this report are drawn from the meeting record and attributed to the speakers who made them.