Kitsap County to revise comprehensive plan after Growth Management Hearings Board remand on wildfire planning and housing capacity

The Kitsap County Department of Community Development briefed the Planning Commission on Oct. 21 about a Growth Management Hearings Board order that remanded portions of the county's 2024 comprehensive plan for further work on wildfire planning, multimodal evacuation routes and the land capacity analysis.

Carrie Sali, a long-range planner with DCD, told the commission the board's decision identified three principal deficiencies: that the county must (1) revise its land capacity analysis to demonstrate sufficient housing capacity across all income bands (particularly 0—80% of area median income), (2) adopt planning tools or standards to reduce wildfire risk in the Wildland-Urban Interface and (3) identify multimodal emergency and evacuation routes for the land use element. Sali said the Growth Management Hearings Board remanded those topics to the county for additional work.

Why it matters: the Growth Management Act requires local jurisdictions to plan for housing at a range of densities and incomes and to reduce hazards where feasible. The county…