Island County Annual Docket

Each year Island County sets out an action agenda for legislative land use items, referred to as the Annual Docket. Included are items such as zoning changes, revisions to ordinances, and evaluation and modification of county policies and programs.

Counties must go through an extensive six-month process that includes conducting research on each item, preparing draft amendments, performing an evaluation of environmental impacts, conducting public hearings, and submitting their docket items to the state for review.

This year, Island County had ambitiously set out to include several items on the 2009 Docket. Those items include: essential public facilities, utility segregations, mini storage, Ebey's Reserve, property specific rezone request in the Oak Harbor Urban Growth Area, Freeland development regulations, parks plan and housing element.

The Board of Island County Commissioners places a great deal of emphasis on housing, parks and customer service, according to a spokesman.

"Due to recent budget and staff cuts, processing of permits has fallen behind, causing long waits for property owners who have paid for a specific service," the spokesman said. "It was evident that something had to be removed from the Docket to avail staff the time to catch up on those back logged permits."

Currently, the county is involved in mapping and identifying all existing county property for both housing and parks planning. Data has not yet been finalized to identify the need and availability of housing.

"It is important to prepare draft materials using reliable data," the spokesman said.

The Board has removed the Housing and Parks Plan from the docket until 2010, when the county will be better prepared.

The 2009 Docket can be viewed at: www.islandcounty. net/planning/2009Docket. htm.