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Oak Harbor and Island County advance interlocal agreement to annex about 80 acres; public raises sequencing and affordability concerns
Summary
The Oak Harbor City Council and Island County Commission voted unanimously March 19 to advance an interlocal agreement enabling annexation of roughly 80 acres into Oak Harbor’s urban growth area; speakers urged the jurisdictions to prioritize existing unincorporated ‘donut-hole’ neighborhoods and address service costs and sequencing before finalizing annexation.
Oak Harbor and Island County officials voted March 19 to advance a joint interlocal agreement that would allow about 80 acres inside Oak Harbor’s urban growth area to be annexed into the city, a step planners said is needed to meet state-mandated housing capacity targets.
City and county planners told a joint public hearing the agreement uses a statutory tool (RCW 35A.14.296) that permits jurisdictions to transfer unincorporated land into a city by agreement. City principal planner Kat Kmet said the transfer would allow the land to be included in Oak Harbor’s comprehensive plan and subsequent rezoning and permitting processes. Island County planner Emily Neff told the joint meeting that, because both jurisdictions’ attorneys view one small edit as acceptable, staff recommended striking the first sentence of clause 9 (page 3) of the draft agreement to reflect projects already in the county capital plan (a sidewalk project).
Why it matters: Planners said Oak Harbor’s most recent capacity calculations still leave a shortfall relative to the county allocation the city must plan for, and adding the identified parcels to the city’s planning authority will create options to accommodate future housing. Several commissioners and council members framed the interlocal agreement as an early, procedural step — ownership and zoning changes would follow separate public processes at the city level.
Public concerns: Residents and housing advocates urged caution. John McCoy, a Country Lane resident whose property is included in Annexation Unit 1, said the two small parcels selected ‘‘are not vacant’’ and warned the action could create an isolated service island for those two homes. Marnie Jackson, executive director of the Whidbey Environmental Action Network, argued the sequence of annexing peripheral greenfield land before incorporating existing ‘‘donut-hole’’ neighborhoods into the city inverts the growth-management priorities required by state law and county policy and could leave established urban neighborhoods unserved; she said the coalition ‘‘reserves the right to challenge’’ the action if adopted without conditions. Rose Hughes, managing director of Island Roots Housing, cautioned that extending municipal services increases development costs and questioned whether annexing fringe parcels will produce genuinely affordable housing for Island County workers, noting a reported county median hourly wage cited at the hearing of about $17.33.
Officials’ responses: Staff said notices were sent to overlapping service providers (fire district and Island Transit) and that no written replies were received within the 30-day notice window; under the code, no written response indicates the district is not joining the agreement. Planners also said parcels identified as ‘‘low probability’’ for near-term development may be treated differently in capacity modeling because infrastructure constraints can blunt near-term buildout assumptions. City and county officials emphasized that subsequent rezoning and capital-facilities decisions will require separate public input and studies, and that the interlocal agreement does not itself mandate immediate utility hookups.
Votes and next steps: The Oak Harbor City Council moved to authorize the mayor to sign the interlocal agreement (motion by Council member Marshall; second recorded as Council member Wittgenstein) and passed unanimously. The Board of Island County Commissioners subsequently moved to approve the same interlocal agreement and also voted in favor. City staff said the actual annexation steps would come later at a council meeting (the packet noted a tentative council meeting on April 7) and that an implementation plan and further UGA study will be presented in future work sessions.
The joint bodies closed the hearing after the votes; commissioners and council members said they will continue coordinated work on the identified ‘‘donut-hole’’ neighborhoods and on implementation details such as when and how properties would be required to connect to city utilities.
