NCW Real Estate Blog

I attended the first part of the joint Chelan County and City of Chelan planning study last night.  Four different possible visions of how development might happen in the Chelan Valley were presented on maps.  It was sort of a 20,000 foot estimate of what might happen.  It is early in the process and the differing visions are as much to generate feedback as anything else.  You can link to the County’s information page on the process with additional information here.

Michelle McNeil at the Wenatchee World has an article in today’s paper about the issues that the local governments and citizens are wrestling with.

The Vision Options Were:

1. UGA Extension    

   This vision protects farmland and additional residents are mainly accomodated in the Chelan Urban Growth Area and an expansion of the Manson UGA which would eventually make the areas along shore a continuous urban area from Manson to Pat & Mikes with coordinated urban services.Commercial Ag Zoning (AC would have a minimum lot size of 20 acres.  No cluster Subdivision would be allowed in AC zoning.  RR10, 5 and 2.5 subdivisions should be clustered and density bonuses would be eliminated.

2. Cluster Plan
   Growth would be accomodated in clusters that have access to existing roads within the basin.  Subdivisions outside the UGA must be served by existing roads and must be clustered.  Adequate sewer and water must be available per recommendations of the Watershed plan.
3. Corridor Plan    

   Much Like Cluster except the growth would line corridors, or existing roads, within the basin.Development is strung along the existing roads that would be considered corridors.  Adequate sewer and water must be available per recommendations of the Watershed plan.

4. Existing Zoning Plan    

   Growth would happen within the myriad of regulations that exist currently.  Things would follow existing zoning along with recommendations of existing planning studies.  AC zoning minimum lot size would be 10 acres, unless in a cluster subdivision.  Cluster subdivisions would be allowed in AC, RR10, RR5 and RR2.5 with a Density Bonus of up to 200%.

The presentations did not really talk about the tradeoffs of the various proposals.  For instance, it appears to me that option 1 would have the lowest infrastructure cost per residential unit considering roads, water and sewer.  It would also encourage if not mandate the rural village feel that is appealing to many.  It would also preserve the commercial ag areas.  However, it might do that by causing commercial ag land to be worth only its ag value.

Options 2 and 3 have issues with ag preservation, practicality and more expensive infrastructure that were discussed in various groups at the meetings. The corridor plan might not have great views and the cluster plan might not actually create useful open ag land.

Option 4 is probably the most flexible for property owners, appealing the the property rights side of me.  However, the current myriad of regulations is so difficult and expensive to navigate, I do wish for more even more basic and easily worked within rules that exist currently.  The current system doesn’t really make the libertarian in anybody happy.

Neither of the “middle” solutions excite me, so I would personally prefer to work from one end or the other.  Option 1 concerns me in that ag producers could be serverely limited without some options in the AC rules that allow them to get potential value out of their land.  But, how that would be done and preserve it as ag land, unless ag income per acre gets extremely high, I can’t guess.  However, option 1 could make for very viable, if potentially expensive, urban areas if the other issues could be solved.

On the other end, a modified option 4 best fits the freedom and liberty property rights side of me.  While the free market isn’t always perfect, it still often arrives at better solutions than other methods if all the economic tradeoffs of various decisions have to be paid to get a project done.  I picture it as freedom with incentives to do the right thing.

So, what are your thoughts?  Please share them here in the comments as well as send them to either John Guenther John.Guenther@co.chelan.us at County Planning or Craig Guildroy cgildroy@cityofchelan.us  with the City of Chelan.

Tags: Land Use, Local //