Planners should work on comprehensive plan

The populist political movement that swept the nation last year is alive and well in Wahkiakum County.

A group of conservative citizens upset about perceived threats to private property rights last year convinced the county board of commissioners to form the Wahkiakum County Property Rights Review Board to advise the board on issues that might affect private property.

The board gave its first report this year, advising the commissioners to oppose a state Department of Ecology permit to allow a Long Beach company to dispose of septage biosolids on a Grays River Valley farm.

Commissioners welcomed that advice, which supported comments from many Valley residents. They've decided to pass an ordinance that's contrary to state law, and they're welcoming a legal fight with the Department of Ecology, which has authority to regulate disposal of biosolids.

Now the commissioners have invited the property rights group to go over the proposed revised comprehensive plan. The chair of the committee got that suggestion when he asked the commissioners Tuesday for suggestions for focus points for the property rights advisory group.

The comprehensive plan was written in the early 1980s by a group dominated by farmers and other large land owners. It placed very few restrictions on land use, and there was no zoning. Land was seen as a commodity to sell when one reached retirement age, and the restriction was, and still is, that a lot had to be able to support a septic system. Anything goes.

It was around eight years ago that the county started the process to amend the plan, a process which is recommended to occur at least every 10 years. County commissioners assigned the task to the planning commission, and that board formed a subcommittee that included citizens and businessmen to start the work. The planning group reviewed development in planning concepts in recent years and tried to see how they could apply to Wahkiakum. They ended up presenting a thick document that presented a variety of traditional and contemporary options that developers could follow. The planning commission went over the document, and after two years (maybe three, my memory is hazy that far back), the county commission received the document.

Commissioners weren't pleased with complexity and detail in the proposed plan, and some of the recommendations weren't popular with large land owners. Commissioners held a public hearing on the document and decided they would edit it themselves. That process got underway but was abandoned in 2008 when the board focused on dealing with a revenue shortfall.

Now, the commissioners seem to be saying, maybe the property rights board can take care of it.

Members of the planning commission must be wondering what value or purpose they have.

My feeling is this: The proposed amended plan has languished so long that the county might as well start from scratch, and the job should belong to the planning commission, which has experience in the field. It has been their job; what value is there in assigning the task to a new, inexperienced, untried group? I fear it could become a duplication of effort, a waste of time and energy.