Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Comprehensive Plan topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Hayden council directs staff to pursue comprehensive plan amendment option; consultant engagement to be placed on next agenda
Summary
At a Jan. 28 workshop the Hayden City Council discussed an SCJ Alliance assessment and gave staff direction to pursue the lower‑cost comprehensive plan amendment (first deliverable) estimated at $30,000–$50,000 and to place a contract request on the next regular agenda; other master‑plan deliverables were deferred to later fiscal years.
During a Jan. 28 council workshop, Hayden City staff and councilors reviewed SCJ Alliance’s November 2024 assessment of recommended comprehensive plan amendments and discussed which deliverables, if any, to fund in fiscal year 2025.
City staff presented four primary deliverables from the SCJ assessment: (1) amendments to goals, policies and vision (the “amendment option”), (2) updates to the transportation plan, (3) a sewer master plan update, and (4) a parks master plan update. The amendment option was described by staff and the consultant material as a lower‑cost approach intended to revise the comp plan chapters and the future land use map to reflect policy direction already discussed in prior workshops and a 2022 citizen survey.
Council members debated timing and scope. Several councilors cautioned that pending annexations and planned developments are already in various approval stages; some argued waiting could lock in outcomes for projects already moving through the permit process, while others said delaying the amendment would allow developers to build under the current plan and possibly frustrate newly expressed community priorities. City staff said the amendment is intended to align plan chapters, goals and the future land use map and would create the technical basis needed for later NEPA and capital planning work; staff also noted that some zoning‑text drafting can be done in‑house and that the amendment would be followed by public open houses and hearings.
After discussion, councilors indicated a consensus to direct staff to prepare an agenda item for the next regular meeting to authorize engaging the consultant (SCJ Alliance) to implement the amendment option and associated public outreach. Staff and council cited an estimated cost range of $30,000–$50,000 for the first (amendment) deliverable; council asked staff to identify funding sources and provide clearer documentation of the draft goals and policies and the version of the future land use map that would be used as the starting point.
Council also agreed to defer the other three deliverables (transportation, sewer, parks) to future fiscal years and to retain the option to program them into later budgets. Staff said they would produce the materials requested by individual councilors — including a clear, consolidated draft of proposed goals and policies and the maps used in the SCJ analysis — and that the draft amendment would go through traditional public‑comment steps (open house(s) and public hearing) before any adoption vote.
The workshop concluded with staff noting the next opportunity for public input will be the spring outreach the consultant and staff plan to host; council requested the materials be provided in advance of the next regular meeting so members could review them prior to deciding whether to authorize a contract.
