NCW Real Estate Blog

The Manson Sub Area Plan meeting was very well attended last night.  It was standing room only at the Ray Bumgarner building with several folks standing in the back throughout the meeting. 

There were a number of new faces who gave lots of great testimony and opinion to the Manson council.  There are folks who are worried about growth and change in almost every way imaginable.  A couple of young families who own acreages said they would like to be able to divide and build their homes on their property.  There were a few orchardists who talked about having some flexibility that would allow them to see value from their land above what it is worth for agricultural purposes.  There were also folks who were concerned that growth would not allow them to continue farming their land.   Several people were concerned about change and want things to just stay as they are.

The most contentious issue is what size the new Urban Growth Area should be.  The trade offs are too small of an Urban Growth Area would could cause pressure for home prices to continue to escalate.  If the UGA is made too small, there will be continued pressure to allow rezones of ag land to residential outside of the UGA.  John Guenther, Chelan County Planning Director, mentioned that very thing had happened about 33 times in the Manson Area since 2006.  The other side of the argument is that if the UGA is too large, it will be sprawl.  Please comment on this with your opinions since my understanding is what it is and may be different from yours.

A discussion ensued about changing the urban growth area in smaller steps.  That has the advantage of feeling better to many folks but would do little to reduce the upward pressure on housing prices since the supply of land would remain tightly constrained.  It may not reduce pressure on ag land conversion. 

The next meeting is 6:00 p.m. on April 15 at the Bumgarner building.  The draft plan is available here.

Tags: Land Use, Local //