County staff outlines public process for proposed Port Ludlow cell tower; residents urged to register comments

Greg Ballard, the county development-code administrator, briefed the community on a pending conditional-use application for a cell tower identified as zone case 20-25-11 and urged residents to review materials on the county customer-service portal. "If you go in there, you can see all the documents related to this case," Ballard said, pointing to photo simulations, coverage maps and application materials the county has posted.

Ballard explained the procedural steps: an application notice was posted, a notice of public hearing will be mailed to property owners within 300 feet and published in the newspaper, and the hearing examiner — not county staff — will decide the case based on the record. He warned that federal rules limit local review of radio-frequency safety, saying, "The Telecommunications Act of 1996 kind of precludes the hearing examiner from basically considering those issues because that's been done at a federal level." He advised residents to submit written comments or register in the portal to become parties of record: "If you send me an email and then basically address... send me an email or send me a letter, and then we will send you back," he said, describing how the county will maintain a parties-of-record list.

Several residents raised visibility and notice concerns for the site near Fleet Drive and Swansonville, saying there were no public-notice signs at the driveway. The board offered to host a facilitated town-hall meeting to let residents question county staff and review the application documents in advance of a formal hearing. The county staff said it will accept comments through the portal up to the day of the hearing and will post the staff report about two weeks before the hearing, enabling interested residents to review the record before the examiner rules.