Snohomish County planners are taking a second shot at finding out what county residents think about growth and development.
The county is asking residents to fill out an 11-part survey on growth. The questionnaire will help county planners and leaders with an update of the county’s comprehensive plan, the document that will guide growth for the next 20 years.
The comprehensive plan is made up of land-use and development policies, as well as maps that detail how land can be developed. The update is the most intensive rewrite of the plan since it was adopted a decade ago.
Although the growth plan is being rewritten, it’s not a complete overhaul.
| The questionnaire will be included in The Herald on Sunday.
The surveys also can be picked up at the Lynnwood, Marysville and Monroe libraries, and at planning and development services offices at the County Administration Building in Everett. Or the survey can be answered online at www.co.snohomish.wa.us/pds/10YearUpdate.htm. |
“This was an update. We were not going back to rework the architecture of the plan,” said Mary Lynne Evans, manager of the county’s long-range planning division.
County planners posed key questions when they began the update, including how much growth the county should accept and where it should be located.
That’s led to other questions.
“Is it possible to keep our present level of service or not? And what’s it going to cost?” Evans added. “It’s going to be a very difficult question and one the community needs to grapple with.”
The county questionnaire covers topics such as affordable housing, conserving farm and forest lands, parks and road improvements.
Also in the survey are items that have been hot-button issues, such as fully contained communities, the controversial built-from-scratch towns on rural lands, and storm water management fee increases.
Briefing papers on fully contained communities, conserving resource lands, economic development, parks and other topics can be found online at www.co.snohomish.wa.us/pds/10YearUpdate.htm. Look for the link “Briefing papers for planning commission workshops.”
The survey is the county’s second attempt at gathering public opinion with a growth policy questionnaire.
An earlier survey was pulled after the County Council raised concerns about how the questions were worded.
Councilman John Koster, chairman of the council’s planning and development committee, said he is more comfortable with the rewritten survey. Still, land-use issues are complex and hard to distill into a questionnaire, he said.
Koster said if he had his druthers, more information would be sent out with the surveys. “Educating people on land-use issues is a daunting task,” he said.
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