West Richland leaders review Lewis and Clark Ranch EIS addendum, set March–May schedule

West Richland — City staff and the project consultant updated the West Richland City Council and Planning Commission Tuesday on the Lewis and Clark Ranch planned-action environmental review, saying a draft EIS addendum is needed to incorporate new wastewater-treatment-plant capacity information and additional transportation analysis before the final EIS is published.

“The benefit of doing a planned action ordinance is that because you study environmental impacts upfront… when a permit application comes in and complies with the requirements in that planned action ordinance, they don’t have to do additional project review,” consultant Casey Bradfield said during the joint study session.

Why it matters: the proposed subarea covers more than 7,000 acres with a roughly 700–800 acre planned-action area where the city expects to phase sewer and water service. Bradfield said the planned-action area could support roughly 2,500 jobs and a little under 4,000 housing units over about 20 years, and that the addendum is intended to correct numerical details in the draft EIS without changing the EIS’s mitigation findings.

Bradfield and Community Development Director Eric (last name not given) said the city paused earlier work to refine sewer and transportation planning, then resumed and published a draft EIS for public and agency comment. “One of them is to issue an addendum to the draft EIS… new information came to light about the wastewater treatment plant capacity,” Bradfield said, adding that transportation partners requested more detail and mitigation for facilities outside the city.

The city outlined a schedule for the next steps: three joint study sessions in February–March (the first focused on draft subarea code), a March 24 joint session on the final EIS and proposed amendments to the comprehensive plan and city code, then April–May public hearings with planning commission recommendation followed by city council first and second readings and adoption. Bradfield noted that state SEPA rules require the final EIS to be issued at least seven days before the council takes action.

Councilmembers and commissioners pressed staff on specific details. One participant asked about lot-size ranges for mixed-residential and mixed-use transition zones; staff said mixed-residential lots could range from about 4,000 square feet up to 1 acre to accommodate townhomes through single-family homes. Bradfield said the 60% residential / 40% commercial assumption used in some analyses is an assumption for the buildout model and the draft development regulations to be presented later will not rigidly lock in those mixes.

Several officials raised environmental and infrastructure concerns. Commissioners asked whether the critical-areas map for river-adjacent shrub-steppe habitat was finalized; staff said that mapping will be included in the EIS and warned that development within shrub-steppe could require costly mitigation. The group also discussed fire-mitigation funding and water-rights constraints for buildout beyond the initial phase.

On the process for later changes, staff said amendments to the comp plan or subarea could be required if developers seek a land-use change; one commissioner warned the city could face legal challenges if it failed to provide required supplemental environmental analysis, and staff indicated they would likely run that analysis to reduce legal risk.

Staff emphasized that the subarea code and development regulations will be circulated to commission and council members for review before the next study session. Eric said the team aims to avoid compressed five-day reviews prior to hearings and invited members to meet with staff for detailed, one-on-one questions.

Next steps: staff will publish a draft EIS addendum with corrected wastewater and transportation numbers, issue the final EIS (which will incorporate the addendum and public comments), hold the March 24 joint study session on the final materials, and then proceed to the planning commission and city council public hearings and readings in April and May.