Sunnyside begins two-year comprehensive-plan periodic update with state grant; consultant HLA outlines work plan

City planning staff and consultant HLA presented the periodic update work plan for Sunnyside’s comprehensive plan during the Jan. 14, 2025 Planning Commission meeting, saying the project is funded by a state grant and will span two years.

Joseph Calhoun of HLA told the commission that ‘‘we’re in a grant cycle where that is due by June 30, 2026, and the Washington State Department of Commerce has allocated a $125,000 for Sunnyside to complete this work.’’ He described the first deliverable as the work plan the commission reviewed and said a public participation plan and a population-and-housing allocation would follow. Calhoun said the city will establish a project website, develop surveys, and provide multiple opportunities for public comment; a final public-participation report will be submitted to the Department of Commerce at the end of the project.

Calhoun explained that Yakima County is preparing countywide population and housing projections that will be apportioned to Sunnyside and used to inform the city’s housing allocation. He described the Housing for All planning tool (an Excel-based state tool) and said the update must now break future housing needs out by income categories. The team will also undertake a land-capacity analysis to inventory vacant and underused land and estimate where housing and commercial development could occur.

Staff noted Sunnyside has adopted the county’s critical areas ordinance by reference; HLA will use the state’s checklist to compare the county code with state requirements and recommend whether Sunnyside should continue the county adoption or develop a local critical-areas ordinance. Calhoun said that if Sunnyside stays with the county code, some of year‑2 consultant funding earmarked for Sunnyside would instead be used by the county for work on the county ordinance.

Both staff and HLA highlighted a new statutory requirement from the 2023 legislative session. Calhoun said House Bill 1181 requires all jurisdictions to add a climate element (with a resiliency sub-element) to their comprehensive plans; the state funded that work with separate Commerce grants, and Sunnyside is pursuing that element in parallel with the periodic update. Calhoun said the climate element in Sunnyside’s region does not require a greenhouse-gas inventory component, reducing workload compared with some other jurisdictions.

Derek Broughton, Sunnyside’s Community and Economic Development director, introduced himself to the commission and outlined planning priorities. Broughton said the comp‑plan update and zoning-code and subdivision-code revisions will likely be the commission’s largest work items over the next one-to-two years and that some of Sunnyside’s zoning code contains provisions decades old that staff will recommend modernizing.

Calhoun and Broughton said year‑one deliverables are budgeted under the current biennium; HLA and other consultants will complete the technical work while the grant also pays for staff time, printing, legal notices and public outreach. Calhoun told commissioners he expects a draft public participation plan to appear by the next meeting and reiterated the project timeline in the work plan.

No formal commission action (motions or votes) on the work plan was recorded at this meeting; the presentation served as an introduction to the periodic update and to contract consultants already working under the city’s grant.