City of Sultan Community Development
The Community Development Department coordinates all planning and land use activities, environmental, engineering functions and building permit activities within the City. The department implements the goals and policies of the Comprehensive Plan and associated Development regulations, International Building Code and Engineering Design Standards and regulations.
The number one priority for the department in 2008 was to revise the 2004 Comprehensive Plan to be compliant with the Growth Management Act.
2008 Comprehensive Plan Revisions
Why did the City need to Update its Plan?
Following adoption of the City's Comprehensive Plan in 2004, the Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board determined that the City's Transportation Improvement Plan and Capital Facilities Plan were missing details and analysis required under the State Growth Management Act. In essence, the Capital Facilities Plan must demonstrate how the City is going to provide services such as roads, parks, water, sewer, and storm water to the citizens of Sultan and how these services are to be funded.
Although the 2008 revisions focused on fixing short-comings in the Transportation Element and Capital Facilities Element plan it will also considered how these elements fit together with the other Elements (chapters) in the Plan:
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Provide a "needs assessment" analysis and identify funding to meet future needs. The CFP failed to provide an adequate needs assessment (i.e. current needs, future needs, and expected level of service) so as to properly document the needed funding to supply these services, both in regard to the funds required as well as the source of the needed funds.
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Identify Level of Service Standards. The CFP does not furnish adequate information identifying its established and adopted minimum standards - LOS standards. The City needs to specify its LOS standards in the Capital Facilities Element and furnish more analysis, or the location of such analysis of how its future needs were determined.
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Reassessment of the Land Use Element is required. If the City can't pay for needed improvements, then the City must look at reducing demand on services by reducing LOS standards or by changing the mix of residential and commercial land within the City limits.
What is a Comprehensive Plan?
Cities and counties in Washington State are required to plan for Growth under a 1994 law called the Growth Management Act. The State of Washington mandates the development of Comprehensive Plans through the Growth Management Act. The Act mandates the Comprehensive Plan include information and analysis on Land-Use, Transportation, Housing, the Natural Environment, Capital Facilities, Utilities, Economic Development and Parks.
The purpose of a Comprehensive Plan is to anticipate growth and to guide this growth in a manner that will provide a community with a balance of land uses and identified levels-of-service. The Comprehensive Plan looks into the future to the year 2025. City planners estimate how projected growth will effect various aspects of the built environment such as transportation, parks, water, sewer and storm water facilities.
The City uses the Comprehensive Plan as a yardstick for measuring its future activities and determines how the City will finance needed improvements to serve the anticipated 11,119 people who will live in Sultan in the year 2025.
The current Comprehensive Plan was adopted in 2004. A 2008 Comprehensive Plan Update is currently being drafted, and will involve the participation of the citizens of Sultan, the business community, and governmental agencies.
How is this effort different from past efforts to "fix" the Plan?
The City performed a lot of work to bring its Comprehensive Plan into Compliance with the Growth Management Act. Many of the issues were addressed and the Growth Management Hearings Board approved many parts of the City's Plan. The most difficult parts of the Plan to fix were the Transportation Element (chapter), the Transportation Improvement Plan and the Capital Facilities Element (chapter) and the Capital Facilities Plan. These chapters along with the other chapters in the Plan must be internally and externally consistent as well as meet the requirements of the Growth Management Act. This is the focus of the current update.
Because all of the parts of the Comprehensive Plan must be internally and externally consistent, the City also reviewed the other elements of the Plan and making adjustments as necessary.
Document Center
2008 Revision to 2004 Comprehensive Plan
2011 Comprehensive Plan Update
Sultan adopted it's last update in 2004. In 2008, the City adopted revisions to the 2004 plan to be consistent with the Growth Management Act.
Even though the City adopted revisions to it's plan in 2008, the City is still required under the Growth Management Act to update the 2004 Plan by December 1st, 2011.
As part of the 7 year update, the City is required to:
- Align it's goals and policies with regional and County goals and policies.
- Have an accurate inventory of capital facilities, utilities and housing.
- Review and update it's development regulations to be consistent with the Comprehensive Plan.
Public participation and involvement in the seven-year update will begin in 2009.
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