Walla Walla council reviews draft countywide planning policies, readies resolution for formal action

The Walla Walla City Council on Jan. 21 held a work session on an update to the countywide planning policies, a framework required by the state Growth Management Act that guides how the county and cities coordinate comprehensive plans.

The draft policies, which the project management team has reviewed chapter by chapter over the last year, would establish an ongoing advisory group — the Walla Walla County Growth Management Advisory Council — and include an implementation matrix meant to keep the policies a “living document,” city planning staff said. Preston Frederickson, a planning staff member who presented the briefing, said, “the countywide planning policies are are basically, a requirement of the growth management act.”

The nut of the update is procedural coordination rather than mapping decisions: the policies set high-level direction for urban growth areas, transportation coordination, essential public facilities and other items that each jurisdiction will implement later through its own comprehensive plan. Frederickson told councilmembers the updated policies are intended to set a common rubric so that Walla Walla and neighboring jurisdictions can develop their comprehensive plans in a coordinated way ahead of the state deadline.

Frederickson described the outreach and review process: Walla Walla, College Place, Prescott and Waitsburg entered an interlocal agreement to update the policies; each jurisdiction appointed representatives to a project management team and worked with a consultant team to identify gaps in state law and modernize the document. He said some chapters were combined or eliminated for clarity and that the county’s project management team voted on Dec. 23 to forward the draft to partnering jurisdictions for action.

Mayor Steve Moss, who served on the project management team, said the process was “very professionally done” and involved about 11 meetings with roughly 90% participation. He said he was encouraged that the county commissioners had unanimously voted to move the draft forward to the partner cities. Several councilmembers praised the collaborative model and asked clarifying questions about scope: Councilmember Willis asked whether the policy update changes the urban growth boundary; Frederickson replied that the countywide planning policies are not a mapping exercise and do not themselves change boundaries, adding that mapping and specific growth-area adjustments will happen at the comprehensive-plan stage.

Councilmembers also discussed the advisory council and how interlocal agreements would be used to implement cross-jurisdictional actions. Frederickson emphasized that interlocal agreements are voluntary contracts among local governments and said the advisory council would serve as a standing venue to bring forward countywide issues and recommend edits to the policies over time.

No formal action was taken during the work session. Frederickson told councilmembers the staff recommendation is that the council ratify the draft at the next regular meeting and forward a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners for final approval. The council is scheduled to consider a resolution ratifying the draft at a subsequent public meeting.

If approved by individual jurisdictions and then the county, the policies will guide each jurisdiction’s update of its comprehensive plan ahead of the state-mandated update cycle.