VANCOUVER – Clark County residents will get another chance to weigh in on the ongoing Comprehensive Growth Management Plan update Thursday evening during a Planning Commission hearing aimed at developing another recommendation to send the Board of County Councilors.
Concerned residents and commissioners will meet in the sixth floor of the Clark County Public Service Center, 1300 Franklin St. in Vancouver, to develop the recommendation after county councilors altered the controversial Alternative 4 update proposal and presented a new set of planning assumptions during a work session last Monday.
“We are at a point now where the planning assumptions have not been vetted yet,” Councilor David Madore said of the data sets used to predict how Clark County is likely to grow and change in the future.
Madore and others criticized the established data sets as “unrealistic” in October after the Planning Commission forwarded the BOCC an original preferred alternative recommendation which did not include any part of his signature Alternative 4.
To form that recommendation, the Planning Commission reviewed the Draft Supplemental Impact Statement (DSEIS), which examined each of the four proposed alternatives using the already-established assumptions. Madore responded by going to work fine-tuning a custom data set.
“The concerns and recommendations expressed by the DSEIS, citizen testimony and city representatives have provided me with valuable feedback to make Alternative 4 better,” Madore said at a hearing late last month. “As a result, Alternative 4 has been updated to lessen impacts and mitigate concerns.”
Madore presented the new assumptions during a Nov. 9 joint work session between the BOCC and the Planning Commission. Thursday’s meeting will allow the Planning Commission time to review the updated proposal, hear residents’ concerns, and vote on another recommendation ahead of the BOCC’s regular meeting.
The Planning Commission held a pair of meetings earlier this week to explain the updated Alternative 4 proposal. The meetings also allowed citizens more time to voice comments and concerns about the update process and the choices available.
The BOCC will continue its October hearing to select a preferred alternative at 10 a.m. Tues., Nov 24. That preferred alternative will then be studied in a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FSEIS) before the adoption process can occur.
The revised version of Alternative 4 can be found on The Grid with additional materials at www.clark.wa.gov/Planning/2016update/index.html
