Sub-area plan scheduled for completion in December

Kitsap County Department of Community Development (DCD) representative James Weaver gave a presentation to the Port Orchard City Council on Monday night to update members on the progress of the Port Orchard Urban Growth Area (UGA) Sub-Area Plan for South Kitsap.

The plan is currently scheduled for completion by 2006.

“We’re committed to meeting the deadline at the end of the year,” said Weaver, a senior planner who works with Port Orchard’s Citizen Advisory Committee (CAG). “(We believe we’ve) come up with a project that represents the community and is acceptable to (Port Orchard) and to (Kitsap County) as well. We welcome and solicit any comments from the City of Port Orchard.”

For almost a year the DCD and the city of Port Orchard have been rekindling the UGA planning process that had been on the back burner for years.

The UGA is the area within which Port Orchard’s urban grown is expected to be contained through the year 2020.

The CAG recently, with the help of county planners like Weaver, came up with a boundary line within which to study urban growth and assess where the actual UGA boundary will be.

However, the study boundary has gotten larger as the years have passed.

This was a major concern of City Councilwoman Rita DiIenno.

“I’m very concerned that (this project) has been waylaid for several years and now it’s almost double the size. It doesn’t seem believable,” DiIenno said of the end-of-the-year deadline.

Weaver presented the council with the process’ schedule for completion. Twenty-five of the 63 steps have been completed.

“I believe the committee is doing an excellent job,” said CAG member Richard Brown, who addressed the Council after Weaver’s presentation. “We’re going as fast as we can. South Kitsap will look like what South Kitsap wants to look like, not what some contractor from Seattle tells us it should look like.”

He accused an unnamed councilmember of “throwing stones” at the CAG.

According to the DCD, the intent of a sub-area plan is “to recognize what residents appreciate about their community and develop the standards and regulations to preserve those distinguished characteristics.”

When finished, the plan will go before the county commissioners for approval.

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