Pacific County adopts ordinances to speed permit processing and align appeals with state law

The Pacific County Board of County Commissioners on June 10 adopted two planning ordinances intended to streamline land-use permitting and align county processes with recent state law.

Planning staff presented Ordinance No. 196 as a consolidation and update of prior ordinances (177 and 177a) to reflect the requirements of the second substitute Senate Bill 5290, which establishes firm state timelines for permit processing. Staff explained the statutory framework the ordinance is designed to meet, citing target processing periods of 65 days for permits without public notice, 100 days for permits requiring public notice, and 170 days for permits requiring public notice and a hearing. Staff warned that the state statute includes potential fee refunds to applicants if a county misses processing deadlines (refunds of up to 10% for a 10% miss and up to 20% if missed by 20% or more), which the ordinance seeks to address through procedural updates and on-call planning assistance.

Planning staff also described amendments that make pre-application meetings optional for certain Type 1 applications and added other cleanup changes to remove redundancy. "We currently maintain an on-call permitting contract with Facet to provide on-call planning services, which will help us meet that requirement," planning staff said.

On a related item, the board adopted Ordinance No. 197 to revise the office of hearing examiner procedures. The ordinance removes a county-level request-for-reconsideration process in favor of the state appeals route under RCW 36.70C; staff said the change reduces uncertainty and limits potential county liability by relying on the state process.

Both ordinances were presented at a prior planning commission workshop and public hearing (02/06/2025) and received that commission's recommendation; the board adopted the ordinances with findings and conclusions by voice vote.