Shelton council hears comprehensive plan draft; staff to start 60-day state review

City of Shelton staff and consultants on Tuesday presented a near-complete draft of the city’s comprehensive plan update and asked the City Council to authorize the start of formal state and environmental reviews.

Interim economic development director Jason Doz and Kirsten Peterson, project manager with SDJ Alliance, walked council members through proposed changes including higher residential density allowances in residential and mixed-use areas, return of a multifamily land-use designation, new “residential target areas” and a regional retail overlay for highway commercial corridors. Doz told the council the package is intended to align local policy with recent state housing and planning laws and to set the stage for follow-on zoning and development-regulation changes.

The draft includes required elements for land use and housing and updates to the capital facilities, transportation and climate-resilience chapters. “We are proposing to bring back the multifamily zone,” Doz said, explaining the change would make it easier for existing multifamily properties to expand without the planned-unit-development process. Peterson noted state requirements that led to several changes: “Comp plans have to be updated every 10 years,” she said, and the plan must address recent legislation on housing, tribal consultation and climate planning.

Why it matters: The plan sets policy direction used later to change zoning and regulations. Several proposals — allowing more accessory dwelling units (ADUs), permitting duplexes/triplexes more widely, creating multifamily tax-exemption target areas and increasing mixed-use density — would be implemented through separate code updates after plan adoption. Those follow-on…