Thurston County Planning Commission to Hold Public Hearing Thursday, August 3rd

The Thurston County Planning Commission is holding an important Public Hearing on Thursday, August 3 at 6:30 pm. The meeting, to be held at the Worthington Center, on the campus of St. Martin’s University, will take public testimony related to water quality protections, rural rezoning and clustered development regulations.

Public testimony can be given in person or by phone or email.

The County’s announcement of the event is here.

Futurewise has released a notice for the event, which reads, in part:

Thurston County is making big decisions about how to protect drinking water and the character of Thurston County for the future!

It’s critical that we are there to speak up in support of strong protections!

Please arrive early!

Futurewise will be there at 5:30 (and have pizza at 6pm), before the hearing, to get people signed up to testify. Meet them outside of the side door to the Worthington Center (the right side of the building if you are facing the building, which is also outside of the kitchen area).

If you are unable to attend the hearing, please contact the Planning Commission at 360-786-5490 or email them at peterscs@co.thurston.wa.us to urge them to protect Thurston County’s quality of life.

Talking points:

As a Thurston County resident, I urge you to protect water quality and our quality of life. I’ve seen first hand the effects of irresponsible and poorly planned development on our community. Please strengthen the protections to keep Thurston County a great place to live, including:

  1. Additional policies and changes to the land use map should be added to protect water quality, especially Puget Sound and shellfish areas.
  2. Increase the amount of land in the Rural Protection 1:10 and Rural Protection 1:20 districts with an emphasis on lands that if subdivided would harm water quality, drinking water supplies, and oyster beds.
  3. Clustering provisions in the rural area are a good idea, as long as a range of rural densities (1:5, 1:10 and 1:20) are maintained and no rural densities exceed one unit per five acres.
  4. The urban reserve district boundary should be reduced in size – given the large size of the existing urban growth areas, it seems unlikely that so much urban reserve will be needed in the foreseeable future.
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