Planning Manager Bilinski told the Bonney Lake Planning Commission on Jan. 8 that staff has prepared a draft 2025–26 planning commission work plan focused on finishing the city’s comprehensive-plan periodic update and a set of statutory and code updates.

The draft work plan is being developed under the city’s Resolution 2089, which requires the planning commission to adopt a work plan within the last two months of the biennium or the first two months of the next biennium, Bilinski said. The plan lists priorities the commission will pursue while recognizing the schedule may change once the comprehensive plan’s implementation chapter is adopted.

Key items in the draft work plan include finishing the comprehensive-plan update (first by completing the mobility element with a transportation consultant), companion ordinances to align the zoning map and the land-use table with the new plan, and a set of statutory updates and code cleanups. “We are continuing to work with our transportation consultant to finish the mobility element, and that will let us cascade into completing the other elements,” Bilinski said.

Staff told commissioners the statutory updates include items tied to state actions such as “5290” and permit-processing streamlining; staff said much of the state law is already in effect locally and staff will ensure city regulations mirror state requirements. Bilinski warned that for some bills—particularly accessory dwelling unit (ADU) provisions—“if we are not able to complete our work and get adoption by council before the end of June, the state laws will supersede our local laws until we can complete that work.”

Construction-code updates are framed as a high-level cleanup to correct references after periodic reordering of code sections, Bilinski said. If staff capacity allows, the work plan also calls for annual development-regulation maintenance to address small code gaps or clarifications identified during implementation.

The plan also retains an item from a prior cycle: pursuing a Midtown Countywide Growth Center designation. Bilinski said staff hopes to advance that designation during the work cycle. Commissioners raised one editorial correction requested by Commissioner Dahl about the work-plan table of contents: “On the advisory tasks, you've got downtown master plan, but I don't see anything about that,” Dahl said; Bilinski acknowledged the table needed updating.

Rather than hold the commission’s usual joint meeting with the city council to discuss the work plan, staff said they will reserve the joint meeting slot this year for a joint public hearing on the comprehensive-plan update because of the scope and expected public interest. The draft work plan will be routed through the Community Development Committee (CDC) and the City Council for comment and adoption, Bilinski said.

The commission had no formal vote on the work plan at this meeting; Bilinski asked commissioners for feedback and noted staff will return with a revised timeline midyear if needed.

Next steps: staff will continue mobility-element work with the transportation consultant, prepare companion ordinances tied to the comprehensive plan, and bring proposed construction-code housekeeping amendments and development-regulation maintenance items back to the commission as schedules allow.