Planning commission advances Thurston 2045 follow-up items, urges early review of health chapter

The Thurston County Planning Commission on Sept. 3 discussed follow-up recommendations for the Thurston 2045 comprehensive-plan update, voted to advise the county to accelerate a rewrite of the plan’s health chapter, and received a recap of a Growth Management Hearings Board decision on an agricultural soils appeal.

Senior planner Maya Tibel briefed the commission on next steps, including a technical appendix that will summarize the planning commission’s 2023 agricultural-soils findings and an implementation timeline that dockets a new agricultural zone overlay for the county’s short-term work program. Tibel told commissioners that the county prevailed on most points in an appeal by FutureWise but that the Growth Management Hearings Board found the county must still consider farmlands of statewide importance; staff plan to address that topic in a new legislative docket within the next…