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Recap of 2022Q3

Analysis

Date Range: July 5, 2022 – September 26, 2022

Executive Summary

In the third quarter of 2022, the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners pivoted from the reactive crisis management that defined the prior period to a determined, if contentious, effort to advance long-term strategic goals, particularly on housing. The board directed immense resources—including a 42-year land lease, a $500,000 ARPA commitment, and over $550,000 in grant funds—to partners like OlyCAP and the City of Port Townsend to create shelter and workforce housing. These actions represent a clear and consistent allocation of capital to address the county’s most severe structural challenge.

This strategic focus, however, was nearly eclipsed by the board's attempt to overhaul a foundational land use regulation through a new "Legal Lot of Record" ordinance. Driven by state mandates, the effort to clarify which parcels are legally buildable consumed extensive staff time and provoked significant public opposition from landowners and real estate professionals who argued the process was burdensome, poorly communicated, and a threat to property rights. The ordinance, still unresolved at the quarter’s end, exposed the deep-seated tension between the county’s need for orderly growth management and the community's resistance to increased regulatory complexity.

While attempting to build a proactive forest management strategy to avoid future revenue-versus-conservation battles, the board’s primary operational pattern was one of wrestling with complex, foundational policy work. The winners were social service agencies and housing developers, who secured unprecedented long-term commitments. The losers were rural landowners, who now face greater uncertainty and a new, potentially costly regulatory hurdle. The board successfully aligned its spending with its stated housing priority but found its strategic agenda slowed by the immense political and administrative friction of regulatory reform.

Individual Action Analysis

1. Board Advances Major Housing Projects with Land, Cash, and Grant Support

Topic

The board approved a series of significant financial and land-use commitments to advance homeless shelter services and workforce housing development.

Context

  • Housing Crisis: The actions address the county’s severe housing affordability and availability crisis, a top stated priority for all three commissioners.
  • Grant Dependency: The decisions were structured to unlock state and federal funding. A 42-year land lease to OlyCAP for the Caswell-Brown Village site was a prerequisite for a Washington State Department of Commerce grant for permanent supportive housing.
  • Fiscal Pressure: The board leveraged one-time ARPA funds and dedicated housing funds (from a 2018 real estate excise tax) rather than the strained General Fund to make these commitments.
  • Urban-Rural Divide: The projects are concentrated in or near the Port Hadlock and Port Townsend urban growth areas, reflecting a strategy of focusing density where services exist.

Public Input

  • Who testified: Public comment was minimal on the lease and funding agreements. Housing advocates and city officials spoke in favor of the Evans Vista project.
  • What they represented: Support came from organizations directly involved in service delivery and municipal government.
  • Substance of testimony: Testimony for the Evans Vista project highlighted the strategic opportunity to develop 50-150 workforce housing units on city-owned land.
  • Notable absences: No significant opposition to these specific housing initiatives was recorded during the meetings.

Deliberation Insights

  • Strategic Alignment: Deliberations were consistently framed around the need to make decisive, large-scale investments in housing. Commissioners treated the decisions not as isolated actions but as interconnected parts of a broader strategy.
  • Leveraging Assets: The board demonstrated a clear strategy of using county assets (land, fiscal agency, ARPA funds) to attract larger pools of external funding from state and federal partners.
  • Delegation and Trust: Commissioners largely deferred to OlyCAP on operational details for the Caswell-Brown site and to the City of Port Townsend on the Evans Vista plan, focusing their role on providing the necessary foundational resources.
  • Unchallenged Assumptions: The board accepted that long-term leases and direct financial support to partner organizations are the most effective tools for addressing the housing crisis. Alternative models were not discussed.

Decision & Vote

  • Approved a 42-year, $10/year lease with OlyCAP for the 21.81-acre Caswell-Brown Village site. (Approved 3-0, August 26)
  • Approved a $440,000 agreement with OlyCAP for Caswell-Brown site work using dedicated 1590 housing funds. (Approved 3-0, August 22)
  • Approved a commitment letter for a $1.65 million match (including land value) for an OlyCAP HUD grant application. (Approved 3-0, September 26)
  • Committed $500,000 in ARPA funds to the City of Port Townsend for pre-development work on the Evans Vista workforce housing project. (Approved 3-0, August 15)

Impact & Analysis

Immediate & Long-Term Consequences
  • Winners: OlyCAP secures long-term site control and significant capital, enabling a major expansion of homeless shelter and housing services. The City of Port Townsend receives critical seed funding for a large workforce housing project. Unhoused individuals and the local workforce are the ultimate beneficiaries.
  • Losers: No direct losers were identified, but the decisions commit a prime county-owned parcel near an urban growth area to a single use for four decades, precluding other potential development or revenue-generating options.
  • Fiscal Impact: The county committed over $940,000 in direct funding and leveraged the value of its land for a $1.65 million grant match. This represents a significant redirection of public resources toward non-profit and municipal partners.
  • Operational Changes: The county is now a long-term landlord for a major social service facility, creating ongoing administrative and oversight responsibilities.
Strategic Implications
  • Proactive vs. Reactive: These actions are proactive and strategic, aiming to build permanent infrastructure to address a chronic problem, moving beyond the temporary shelter ordinances of the past.
  • Alignment with Stated Priorities: The decisions perfectly align with the board's stated priority to combat the housing crisis. The scale of the investment demonstrates this is the board's primary focus.
  • Budget Trade-offs: By using ARPA and dedicated housing funds, the board avoided immediate trade-offs with General Fund services like law enforcement or public works. However, it commits a significant portion of its one-time federal relief funds to a single sector.
Critical Gaps & Risks
  • What was not discussed: The long-term fiscal liabilities of supporting these projects, should grant funding for OlyCAP's operations diminish in the future. The county's potential role as a funder of last resort was not addressed.
  • Connection to Fundamental Tensions: These actions directly address the housing affordability crisis. By placing facilities near existing infrastructure, they align with smart growth principles but do little to address housing needs in more remote rural communities.
  • Vulnerabilities Created: The county becomes deeply reliant on the operational and financial success of a single non-profit partner (OlyCAP) for its primary homelessness strategy.

Topic

The board held hearings and began deliberations on a new "Legal Lot of Record" ordinance to systematically determine which parcels are legally buildable, replacing a temporary moratorium.

Context

  • External Mandates: The ordinance is driven by the need for compliance with the state's Growth Management Act (GMA), subdivision laws, and public health codes for onsite sewage. The existing ad hoc process created legal risks and inconsistent outcomes.
  • Development Constraints: The county's limited private land base intensifies the impact of any regulation affecting buildability. The proposed ordinance would require a formal review process before a development permit is issued.
  • Housing Crisis: Proponents argued the ordinance would create clarity and ultimately speed up development on viable lots. Opponents, including the home builders' association and real estate agents, warned it would add a costly and time-consuming burden that would stifle housing creation.
  • Tax Base Limits: Protecting water quality by ensuring proper septic system placement on legal lots is a key driver, as contamination could lead to costly public health crises and impact the shellfish industry.

Public Input

  • Who testified: A broad coalition of landowners, real estate agents, developers, and home builders' association representatives.
  • What they represented: The speakers largely represented development interests and individual property owners facing new regulatory hurdles.
  • Substance of testimony: Testimony was overwhelmingly critical. Speakers argued the outreach was insufficient, the process was overly complex and burdensome, it would devalue property, and it would disproportionately harm owners of small, older parcels. Many demanded an extension of the moratorium to allow for more outreach and simplification.
  • Intensity: Testimony was extensive and impassioned, with over 15 speakers at the primary public hearing on September 26.

Deliberation Insights

  • Board Division: Deliberations revealed a split. Commissioners Dean and Eisenhour emphasized the need for regulatory compliance, environmental protection, and process consistency. Commissioner Brotherton questioned the "net benefit," expressing concern about creating an expensive new bureaucracy for landowners and advocating for a simpler approach that presumes legality for most lots.
  • Staff-Driven Process: The Department of Community Development (DCD) and the Prosecuting Attorney's office drove the ordinance, framing it as a non-discretionary legal necessity. The board spent significant time trying to understand the technical details presented by staff.
  • Alternatives Rejected: The board explicitly rejected extending the moratorium, creating intense pressure to finalize the ordinance by the October deadline. The simpler "Clark County model" was raised as an alternative by Commissioner Brotherton and the public but was not adopted by the board majority.
  • Unchallenged Assumptions: The DCD's premise that a new, multi-step review process was the only legally defensible way to achieve compliance was largely accepted by the board majority, despite public demands for a less intrusive system.

Decision & Vote

  • No final action was taken. The board held a public hearing on September 26, closed testimony, and continued deliberations to the following week.

Impact & Analysis

Immediate & Long-Term Consequences
  • Winners: County legal and planning departments, which gain a standardized, legally defensible process. Environmental interests who support stricter review of development in critical areas.
  • Losers: Owners of non-standard or pre-code lots, who face a new, potentially expensive process to validate their development rights. The real estate and construction industries face increased transaction costs and project delays.
  • Fiscal Impact: The ordinance will require new county fees for determination reviews. Property owners may face significant costs for surveys or studies. The fiscal impact on DCD staffing to manage the new workload was not specified.
  • Operational Changes: The ordinance will institute a mandatory new review step in the county's development permitting process.
Strategic Implications
  • Reactive vs. Proactive: The action is reactive to state law and the expiration of a moratorium. However, the proposed solution is a proactive attempt to build a durable, comprehensive regulatory system.
  • Alignment with Stated Priorities: The ordinance aligns with stated priorities of environmental protection and orderly growth management but creates direct conflict with the goal of streamlining development to address the housing crisis.
  • Pattern Recognition: This action demonstrates the immense difficulty and political cost of updating foundational county regulations. It consumed more board time and generated more public opposition than any other issue in the quarter.
Critical Gaps & Risks
  • What was not discussed: A comprehensive analysis of the ordinance's economic impact on housing costs and the construction sector. The board lacked data on how many parcels would be rendered un-buildable or face significant new costs.
  • Stakeholder Exclusions: While the real estate and building communities were vocal, the voices of individuals hoping to build affordable homes on family land were less present, though their interests were frequently cited.
  • Connection to Fundamental Tensions: This ordinance is the focal point for multiple core tensions: housing affordability vs. development constraints, rural preservation vs. growth, and the county's limited tax base vs. the demand for robust government services (in this case, planning and permitting).
  • Vulnerabilities Created: Pushing forward with a complex ordinance despite widespread public confusion and opposition risks eroding public trust in the county government and could bog down the DCD with appeals and implementation challenges.

3. Board Cautiously Advances Strategic Forest Plan After Prior Reversal

Topic

The board amended and approved a professional services contract with Chickadee Forestry to develop a long-term forest stewardship plan.

Context

  • Policy Inconsistency: This action follows the board’s reversal on deferring timber sales in the previous quarter. The decision to now fund a strategic plan is an attempt to create a durable policy and avoid future conflicts between revenue needs and conservation goals.
  • Fiscal Pressure: The plan must identify ways to generate revenue for junior taxing districts (like rural fire and schools) that are less reliant on controversial clearcut harvests of state trust lands.
  • Environmental Demands: The contract directs the consultant to analyze options for carbon sequestration, recreation, and habitat connectivity, reflecting the priorities of the county's progressive, environmentally-focused electorate.
  • Economic Development vs. Environmental Protection: The entire exercise is an attempt to find a middle ground in this fundamental county tension, exploring models that provide both economic return and ecological benefits.

Public Input

  • Who testified: Dr. Patricia Jones of the Olympic Forest Coalition.
  • Substance of testimony: The testimony was supportive, encouraging the board to update its decade-old "Forests of the Future" report and to analyze options for managing state trust lands.

Deliberation Insights

  • Scope Refinement: Deliberations showed the board's political sensitivity. Commissioners narrowed the consultant's scope from making "recommendations" to providing "inventory and options," ensuring that policy decisions remain firmly with the elected board.
  • Pacing and Control: The board tabled the contract amendment on September 6 to allow for more precise language, then approved the revised version on September 12. This reflects a desire to manage the process carefully and avoid being perceived as delegating decision-making to a consultant.
  • External Review: The approved scope of work includes a step for external review by stakeholders, including the timber industry and state agencies, indicating the board is trying to build a broad base of support for the eventual plan.

Decision & Vote

  • Tabled a contract amendment for Chickadee Forestry to revise the scope of work. (Consensus, September 6)
  • Approved Amendment 3 to the professional services agreement with Chickadee Forestry to proceed with the analysis. (Approved 3-0, September 12)

Impact & Analysis

Immediate & Long-Term Consequences
  • Winners: Proponents of long-range planning and conservation, who secure a formal process for developing an alternative to the status-quo timber sale model.
  • Losers: No immediate losers, but traditional timber interests may be disadvantaged if the final plan shifts priorities away from industrial harvesting.
  • Fiscal Impact: The contract amendment added $32,000, bringing the total contract value to $135,000, funded by a supplemental appropriation.
  • Long-Term Impact: This initiates a process that could fundamentally alter how the county manages its own forest lands and how it advocates for the management of state lands within its borders.
Strategic Implications
  • Proactive vs. Proactive: This is a direct shift from the reactive decision-making on timber sales in the prior quarter to a proactive, strategic planning effort. It represents institutional learning from a past policy failure.
  • Alignment with Stated Priorities: The action aligns with stated priorities for environmental protection, climate resilience, and long-term fiscal stability.
  • Pattern Recognition: This action, combined with the strategic planning RFP and work on the PROS plan, shows a broader board commitment to moving toward more systematic, long-range planning.
Critical Gaps & Risks
  • What was not discussed: The political viability of any plan that results in a net revenue reduction for junior taxing districts. The core conflict between funding rural services and preserving forests remains unresolved.
  • Connection to Fundamental Tensions: The entire purpose of this planning effort is to find a resolution to the conflict between the county's limited tax base and service demands, and between economic development and environmental protection.
  • Vulnerabilities Created: By commissioning a detailed study, the board raises expectations for a comprehensive solution. If the final plan is politically unworkable or fiscally unfeasible, it could deepen cynicism and fail to prevent future conflicts.

4. Board Responds to Constituent Safety Demands with New No-Shooting Zone

Topic

The board approved an ordinance establishing a new no-shooting area in the Greater Jolly Way and Silverberry Place neighborhood.

Context

  • Public Safety Concerns: The action was initiated by a resident petition citing unsafe gunfire, ricochets, and noise in a residential area. This follows a similar action in Cape George in the prior quarter.
  • Regulatory Framework: The board acted under its authority in state law (RCW 9.41.300) to restrict firearm discharge where a "reasonable likelihood of jeopardy" to public safety exists.
  • Urban Growth vs. Rural Preservation: The issue highlights the growing friction in semi-rural areas as housing density increases, clashing with traditional rural activities like recreational shooting.

Public Input

  • Who testified: Multiple residents from the affected area and the County Sheriff.
  • Substance of testimony: Residents overwhelmingly supported the zone, describing frequent and unnerving gunfire near their homes. One commenter suggested expanding the zone's boundaries for better enforceability. The Sheriff confirmed the ordinance was enforceable but noted challenges with signage.

Deliberation Insights

  • Deference to Petitioners: The board showed strong deference to the residents who brought the petition, viewing the high level of support (91.7% of residents) as a clear mandate.
  • Cautious on Expansion: Despite a request to expand the zone's boundaries, the board opted to approve the zone as originally proposed. They were unwilling to regulate property whose owners had not requested it, demonstrating a cautious approach to imposing new restrictions.
  • Consultation Process: The record indicates the board conducted outreach to affected tribal governments, although no response was received. This shows an established procedure for navigating sovereignty issues in land use regulation.

Decision & Vote

  • Approved an ordinance establishing the Greater Jolly Way/Silverberry Place No Shooting Area. (Approved 3-0, July 25)

Impact & Analysis

Immediate & Long-Term Consequences
  • Winners: Residents within the new zone, who gain a legal tool to address public safety concerns.
  • Losers: Individuals who previously discharged firearms on private property within the new boundaries.
  • Operational Changes: The Sheriff's Office is now authorized to enforce firearm discharge restrictions in the area, likely starting with warnings. Public Works is tasked with posting signage.
Strategic Implications
  • Reactive vs. Proactive: The action was purely reactive, directly responding to a citizen petition.
  • Pattern Recognition: This decision continues a pattern of the board using no-shooting zones as a surgical tool to resolve safety conflicts in specific neighborhoods as they arise, rather than creating a county-wide framework. It shows a governance model that is highly responsive to organized constituent demand.
Critical Gaps & Risks
  • What was not discussed: A broader, objective set of criteria for when and where no-shooting zones should be established. The current ad hoc, petition-driven process ensures these debates will continue on a case-by-case basis.
  • Connection to Fundamental Tensions: The decision directly mediates the conflict between residential density and traditional rural land uses. In this case, as in the prior quarter, the safety demands of a concentrated residential area took precedence.

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