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Washington County launches transportation assessment review to give developers written pre-land-use guidance
Summary
The county unveiled a Transportation Assessment Review process that provides written comments to applicants before they submit land-use applications; the review is free, aims for a 14-day turnaround and may take up to 30 days for larger projects.
Washington County announced a formal Transportation Assessment Review (TAR) process intended to provide developers with written, pre-land-use guidance on roadway impacts, required frontage improvements and safety concerns.
Tony Mills, associate transportation planner, said the TAR is intended to formalize coordination between applicants, the county and cities so developers know what county comments to expect before filing a land-use application. “Wewant to kind of mimic that as the road authorities that you'll come to us for review before you go through that land use process,” Mills said.
Under the proposed workflow, applicants would submit a completed form, a short narrative describing the project, preliminary plans and any draft or preliminary transportation-impact materials to a shared county inbox or, for larger files, to ProjectDocs. Mills said the countys goal is to issue written comments within 14 days of submittal; complex or larger projects could take up to 30 days.
Mills said the review is intended to identify public improvements, safety issues, specific design concerns (for example, turn lanes or bike facilities), comments on the transportation-impact analysis and potential eligibility for Washington County Transportation Development Tax credits. He said the review is free: “This review is not intended to have any kind of a fee associated with it.”
The county said it is also exploring optional pre-facility review and preliminary design-exception reviews for larger projects, but those additions will require further coordination with county engineering staff before a timeline is set. Mills said the TAR is aimed at reducing post-completeness surprises when applications are already on a citys 120-day statutory review clock.
Mills asked applicants to use the materials at the back table for more information and said the county will provide application forms and process graphics there.
