PORT TOWNSEND — Responding to a Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board order last week, Jefferson County commissioners Monday approved returning the Irondale-Port Hadlock area to rural development standards.
The commissioners also directed planning staff to continue to work on a general sewer plan and engineering report.
The actions will allow the county to start over in the process of implementing an urban growth area in and around the Tri-Area.
The commissioners’ unanimous action came after a closed executive session with county Civil Deputy Prosecutor David Alvarez and Al Scalf, county director of community development.
Development regulations for the urban growth area were adopted in August 2004.
An appeal was filed in October 2004 to the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board, with a final decision and order issued on last week, determining that the county’s capital facilities plan fails to show firm funding for sewer service within the next six years.
Sewer planning
The hearings board also concluded that the county’s plan does not provide sanitary sewer through the new urban growth area over the 20-year planning period.
In returning the Irondale-Port Hadlock area to rural density standards, the commercial zoning of the Hadlock core becomes a “rural village center” once again.