Port Orchard land use panel reviews 2025 comprehensive plan docket, considers rezones on Old Clifton Road

The Port Orchard Land Use Committee on Feb. 19 reviewed the city’s 2025 comprehensive plan docket and staff recommendations, and told members the final docket will go to the City Council the following week.

Nick Bond, community development director, told the committee the filing deadline under POMC 20.04 was Jan. 31 and staff received a mix of city‑initiated and applicant‑initiated amendments. He said city‑initiated items include adding the Sherman Avenue stormwater park master plan as an appendix if that master plan is finished, and routine updates to the capital facilities element and the transportation improvement program.

The discussion included three applicant‑initiated items Bond described as relatively minor and one larger request. McCormick Communities filed to correct a cost estimate in the capital facilities element; staff identified the estimate in the plan as about $1 million when the city’s water system plan lists roughly $1.5 million. Bond said staff wants the comprehensive plan number to match the water system plan, because rates and capital facility charges are based on the water plan figures.

Two map amendment applications were filed, Bond said. One applicant had requested a map change and rezone from R‑2 to R‑3 for a property on a street between downtown and the Melcher area; Bond told the committee that a quasi‑judicial rezone before the hearing examiner, not a comprehensive‑plan map amendment, is the normal route for that change and staff suggested the applicant pursue the hearing examiner process.

The larger request involves several industrial properties on Old Clifton Road. Bond said the parcels on the far side of a creek from Old Clifton Road currently lack public industrial access; they have only a private access (Durfee Lane) with an easement that Bond described as limited to residential access. The owner has applied to change the designation from employment/industrial to residential, citing limited access and steep topography that would require substantial retaining walls to develop industrial pads.

"These properties ... do not have public access," Bond said. "They can't do a whole lot with their property because of the access limitations." He said the city has pursued grants and other options to improve access but has not secured funding and that building a public road would be a significant cost for the city.

Bond said staff reviewed the city’s buildable lands data and countywide planning targets and concluded changing these parcels to residential would not push Port Orchard beyond its employment or housing targets.

Committee members asked about the practical effects of leaving the properties as residential or industrial. Jay Rose Pepe, a Board of Trust city council member who chaired the meeting, asked whether the owner would need to secure access themselves if the land stayed residential; Bond replied yes. Council member Scott Deener asked whether the same owner is pursuing other apartment development farther along Old Clifton Road; Bond said it is the same owner and that expanding development potential across parcels might improve the economics for bringing infrastructure up the road.

Bond said the committee’s docket recommendation will go to City Council for adoption next Tuesday, and that the planning commission will review consequential map amendments before council action. He also said staff found about six or seven corrections needed in the transportation improvement program and are coordinating with public works to update those entries.

The committee did not take formal votes on docket items during its meeting; Bond presented the staff recommendations for council consideration.

Ending: The committee packet includes the draft amendments and a redline for review; staff recommended council adoption of the docket next week and noted additional review by the planning commission will occur where the process calls for it.