PORT ANGELES — Shoreline program planning in Clallam County has moved into a public participation phase.
Clallam County commissioners on Tuesday approved a public participation strategy for the county’s three-year update to its 18-year-old Shoreline Master Program.
No dates for public forums have been set.
Shoreline programs guide waterfront development with “no net loss” of ecological functions, public access and the natural characteristics of shorelines.
The state-mandated planning documents have been controversial in other areas, such as Jefferson County, because buffer zones are used to restrict development near certain marine, lake and river shores.
Planners in the county Department of Community Development are charged with completing the labor-intensive update by the summer of 2012.
Begin drafting policies
This summer, planners will start a yearlong phase to draft policies, designations and recommended shoreline uses.
The state Department of Ecology will offer technical assistance and approve the final update.
Input from tribes, civic organizations, environmental groups, recreation, and conservation and development interests was used to form the public participation strategy.
Several sets of public forums, hearings and comment periods will precede approval of an updated shoreline program. No such dates have been set.
Regional forums will be held in the county’s four watershed planning areas over the next two years.
Community visioning forums will begin this summer or early fall, according to the public participation plan.
Next spring or summer, the county will hold regional forums and open houses on policies, designations and regulations for shorelines.
More regional forums will take place in 2012 when planners roll out a draft shoreline program.
Clallam County will consult with existing committees, work groups and watershed management planning units for technical and policy input.
County commissioners will hold public hearings before adopting the update in the spring or summer of 2012.
The entire public participation strategy — and information about the shoreline program update — is available at www.tiny.cc/RgnIX.
$550,000 grant
A three-year, $550,000 state grant is paying for the planning project. The three-year grant will expire on June 30, 2012.
“We’re trying to move forward as much as possible based on our three-year grant to do so,” Clallam County Planning Manager Steve Gray told the three commissioners on Monday.
The county has no authority over shorelines in Olympic National Park, tribal reservations, cities or trust lands.
“We have about 800 miles of marine and freshwater shorelines that we need to address when we do the update,” Gray said.
Streams and small rivers that flow at 20 cubic feet per second or more must be inventoried and characterized as conservancy, rural, natural, urban and suburban.
In the existing shoreline document, about half is designated as conservancy, 26 percent is considered rural, 4 percent is natural, 1 percent is suburban and 1 percent is urban.
The 20 cubic feet per second standard expands the county’s scope of work by about 140 miles of shoreline from the 1992 update.
“Essentially, for some of the major rivers, we have to analyze them farther up in the watershed,” Gray explained.
Shoreline programs are a requirement of the 1972 Shoreline Management Act, which is intended to “prevent the inherent harm in an uncoordinated and piecemeal development of the state’s shorelines,” according to the state Department of Ecology.
Ecology requires all of Washington’s 260 cities and counties with regulated shorelines to update their shoreline programs by December 2014.
Port Angeles, Sequim and Forks will update their own shoreline master programs.
However, Clallam County and the three cities will pool their resources and combine some of the forums.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.