Oak Harbor staff outline EIS alternatives as planners warn of 1,800-unit shortfall for lower-income housing

Oak Harbor city staff and consultants used a joint city council–planning commission workshop to set the bounds for a programmatic environmental impact statement (EIS) tied to the city’s comprehensive plan update, laying out a no‑action alternative plus focused and higher‑growth options and identifying a large shortfall of housing affordable to lower‑income households.

Consultant Klay White told the meeting that the countywide planning allocations the city must plan to accommodate include about 3,992 new housing units and roughly 1,219 jobs through 2045. ‘‘When we look at existing capacity there’s a capacity shortfall of about 1,800 units for households at 0–80% AMI,’’ White said, summarizing the land‑capacity analysis staff will test in the draft EIS.

Why it matters: staff said the shortfall is concentrated in multifamily and missing‑middle housing types that typically require zoning that allows greater height and density and that single‑family capacity alone will not meet the city’s obligations under state growth law. The EIS — a programmatic, city‑wide environmental review under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) — will analyze transportation, utilities and capital facilities needed to mitigate impacts of growth under each alternative.

What staff proposed: Ray Lindenberg, the city’s senior planner, described Alternative 2 as a ‘focused growth’ option that keeps the R1 (single‑family) district standards unchanged while increasing heights and maximum densities in non‑R1 districts (R2–R4) near transit, jobs and shopping. He pointed to five study areas for targeted rezoning and overlays — including corridors near Home Depot/8th Avenue, South Midway Boulevard (the bowling‑alley area), an extended central business district toward the highway, and an annexed northeast area — that would concentrate capacity where services already exist.

‘‘The ones in the R1 zone district are not changing,’’ Lindenberg told the audience, stressing the staff aim to avoid sudden conversions of single‑family neighborhoods while creating infill capacity.

Alternative 3 is a higher‑growth scenario that expands rezoning overlays and includes larger annexation areas; staff cautioned it would produce more nonconforming parcels and redevelopment pressure, and some council members said those trade‑offs make several Option‑3 areas politically sensitive.

Council debate and scope: several council members asked whether the draft EIS should study more ambitious rezoning in far‑edge annexation areas and the downtown triangle. Staff recommended keeping a broader set of study alternatives in the draft EIS so future decisions (or later property owner proposals) would have ready analyses available, while stressing that including an area in the EIS is not the same as adopting zoning changes.

Process and timeline: consultants said the May–fall schedule calls for a draft EIS to be released for public review later this year, followed by public hearings and selection of a preferred alternative. Final legislative decisions on zoning and the comprehensive plan will come through separate adoption steps.

What’s next: staff will incorporate council feedback into the draft EIS scoping and maps. The city emphasized that no zoning changes or legislative decisions were being made that night; the workshop instead sets the bookends the EIS will analyze.

Speakers quoted in this article are those who spoke during the workshop and are identified in the city record.