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Whitman County to update critical areas ordinance; Commerce grant funds consultant work with June adoption deadline
Summary
County staff said a Department of Commerce grant will fund consultants (Facet and Kimley-Horn team) to revise the critical areas ordinance, including floodplain updates mandated by state agencies; staff expects the contract in weeks and adoption before the end of June.
County Planner Alan Thomson told the Planning Commission the county secured a Department of Commerce grant to hire a consultant team to help update the critical areas ordinance and that negotiations on a contract were underway. "We have been given a grant by the Department of Commerce to hire a consultant to help us through that process," Thomson said, and he identified Facet and Kimley-Horn as the consultant team working with county staff.
Thomson said state agencies such as Ecology and Fish and Wildlife supply standard templates that shape much of the ordinance language, and that the update must be completed before the grant expires at the end of June. "There is a scope of work and that scope of work tells us when it has to go through SEPA and when it has to be adopted...the adoption has to be by the end of June also," Thomson told commissioners. The consultants are expected to prepare drafts for commission review, and the commission will then forward a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners for final adoption.
