City Council - Special Meeting

kind need to make sure this is the one that has the mic going off it so click on the mic got everything let's on teams much you might want to for now e put po e e e order and reminder if you're an elected be the table if you're not you're fine um there's coffee and cookies over here if you'd like it um feel free to there's restrooms up to the side in the back over there uh feel free to come and go as you please and uh St Paul would like to make a couple of opening comments yes well good morning and I want to say the same thing thanks for coming I think this is very important uh it is uh so important I will call it uh is existential uh we have decided that that why we are together that we don't want to do what we have been doing for last 30 years that we you want to decide and sends us some numbers and we take these numbers and allocate and move on I think we should take Serious effort to see what it would look like where we want those to be so I only picture I a lot of people here to to talk about uh the the details of this comp plan I'm talking about next two comp PL including so that and this could be the area this is all this is is the area we try in our come plan this is what the current thinking of all of us is new can will come newc new everything will come new needs will come but I think we should this don't know the so these are things and we as eom development do indust land study and which is probably before end of the year they will have that have to be at we must

make AET Bank effort One Bank it could be all the up 5000 we find what we do and mitigation it looks good on the lot of money for the owner I mean tens of thousands of dollars environmentally and mitigation and make an impact that would cost us lesser and it would envirment and we can build on places e e e and when we do single family homes out in the county other or ug we make individual septic individual we we have to get away from that there is a technology available if you have 20 homes you can actually make one septic which is good for those 20 people and much more efficent much smaller footprint and uh better to control the quality of that because before that you push a se you never looked at it for 30 40 years but that's not the case anymore so I think that we my uh uh comments are that we should now look what we will go in future next 20 30 years not what we have been doing last 30 years and incrementally change that okay that's it I stop here thank you all right thank you for that introduction s Paul and um okay for those online I hope you everyone is hearing it now we had a little bit of technical difficulty and also I would encourage everyone online to mute I think a few of you aren't but I so we don't get any background noise I encourage all of you to mute and then I also encourage anybody in the room that speaks speaks loudly because the only mic we have is the owl here so um and I'm going to duve to a little bit on what sa Paul said in the past I'm going to say

comp plans have been driven by population distribution we kind of come up with a number we distribute the population and then we kind of plan for that and I guess maybe some something new and different was as we look at some things today where do we want to build and expand um where can we build and expand and then once we've determined maybe some of these areas how much how much population can be put into those areas rather than having population drive it have where we want it drive it but that would be a a golden one for me if we could actually do that so what I did last time we talked about the growth management uh ugas and what I did is put together this PowerPoint that will show each City's ug so that we get a little bit of a feel for what's going on out there so next slide dat there we go so here's and I'm doing in alphabetical order so that you all so there's no bias onl so bingham's GGA uh 18,000 acres is their city limits today and I took out 1400 Acres of water because you can't grow on the water uh their population when I did this in 2023 was 95960 for 5.3 people per acre and their ug is 494 Acres the largest ug in the county but I will point out and as Bellingham people will point out for me they have a problem with their ug 220 probably fully developed uh Geneva probably fully developed UST Street what shown uh is Parkland and probably almost fully developed and then you have the burswood Alderwood neighborhoods which again is highly developed um and then a

couple of pieces in North Bellingham that are open area so I I have some empathy for Bellingham that if you're going to take in these areas taking does this does this TV work oh is that not working we'll have to call the IT guy but yes we'll get it work is there a remote we can just hit for TV1 no anybody see remotes around can you use the side runs until we get it going not those angles oh there you there you all right we'll get figured out for you here um so uh this is bellingham's um and then I'll go through all of them here a minute and then we can talk about them uh more specifically yeah Blaine so here's Blaine uh Blaine they have 3571 acres in their ug uh population 6300 they have 1.8 people per acre which is probably one of the lower ones they also have roughly 500 Acres of new UTA and Blaine's problem is that a lot of the land that they have that big strip going across the border is wetland and it's owned by one or two people one person one person yeah a few there's very few owners and there's a big gigantic pond in the middle yeah so there's there's problems with that and so I guess if we think creatively maybe we want to take out some UG and add some ug you notice there's two separate hats yeah connected yeah blae has the privilege of having two sex of their city that aren't connected very rare the Clover connects [Laughter] them yeah just got on in the water lasted one day all right Everson uh here's everson's uh ug which is the dark blue um around the city of

Everson I have noack on this one because the way the map turns out you and the dark blue below noack is part of everson's ug not noack um they're 8 8,800 Acres uh 3100 population 3.6 people per acre and they have 413 acres in their Urban growth area and it's it's basically open land so there's a lot of opportunity in Everson for growth uh but I will point out because we're going to deal with agriculture later it's surrounded by Eggland and that's not necessarily the city of everson's going to destroy the livestock market in W County when they Annex the everon auction market and I know for a fact they're not going to build it yeah so there's issues there too river running through our city and lots of flood prone areas and Jen you're elect you could sit at the table there's a spot for you come on [Laughter] down all right so then uh let's go to the Next One Ferndale uh Ferndale 4500 Acres 16,300 population 3.6 people per acre they have a nice growth size 1436 Acres which is uh towards the North and towards the uh West and then a piece way down south uh which would about up against Bellingham what I find interesting about ferndale's ug if you go west it's a lot of houses that's fully developed that and it's not in their UG and they don't want to be in the city I guess so um so if Ferndale wants to be the second largest city in this the county they just Annex that piece and it's over forever challenge accepted well we've said before you know as it similar to Bellingham right as

it's fully developed not a lot in it for us you know and so we're looking North and Northeast and Northwest all right I think lyndon's next Lyndon we have um 3500 Acres of City Limits which includes 13 acres of water we have a population of 165 so we're at 4.8 people per acre and we have 535 Acres of ug of which 280 is coming off soon because the the blue stuff at the bottom left is going to be um annexed into the city soon and then another chunk the blue at the top is going to be annexed in so our our real ug is probably 200 Acres or something like that um so and we and again Lyon is surrounded by pretty good Eggland and so if we're going to grow we're going to grow into agricultural land next one uh Nooksack 557 Acres uh with no water population 1560 2.8 people per acre and they've used up all of their ug is anybody from noack here today all right we can pilot all on so what am I looking at then if I see two different colors uh that dark the Nooksack is the city that the dark blue is all Everson oh okay um so and that's Everson City Limits and then the dark the light blue is noack and if you I also referenced for the day to come from if you want to look it up so and I'm willing to share the presentation when I'm down to this it's public record at this point all right next one I think is Sumas Sumas is 941 Acres population 1810 1.9 people per acre they have a whopping 27 acres in their UG and sus has the joy of being surrounded by flood water and egg and egg so the blue part

is the flood no the blue part at the bottom is the 27 Acres but it is flood zone though it is flood zone and it's owned by one landowner correct and he doesn't necessarily want to no he doesn't want to give it he want to give it up so so from what I hear not many people want to live in Suess anymore oh I think I got lots of wom in my neighborhood that moved they don't want to go back all right go to the next that's CU they don't have boats oh that's all right so here's kind of a summary um just seasonal waterr property Bellingham if you look at the density column Bellingham is the most densely populated in the county at 5.3 people acre I was surprised linen comes in second at 4.8 um Ferndale and Everson at 3.6 and Blain because of all of the land is the low one at 1.8 anyway it's it's just inter interesting things to look at I also found in one data source population in the UG and it said that bellingham's population in the UTA is 37,000 which I think is a bit high but it it could be right it's around between around 9,000 9,000 so this must be a broader perspective that they're looking at or maybe it's I thought maybe maybe it's just the yeah I I found it I put it up here I I it was suspicious data I'm saying that right out of the gate confirmed it's suspicious about 9,000 total in the UT 37,000 like housing units remember like maybe cus 2020 housing in the city okay yeah all right I don't what that would be maybe it's the zip code of Bellingham that gets mailed that could be

all right we we'll just throw that piece of data out hey SC yes you being you I'm shocked that you didn't analyze Birch Bay and I because it's only cities in the room today but yeah I know but I know C right it would very help though plan for the future you're in charge of the neck not I'm not an overachiever or a swishy guy so that uh let's go to the next slide this shows uh the growth we've seen since 2013 to 2023 and then the third column is the growth each entity saw and then the projected growth in the column uh that that came out in the report the the comp plan report growth projections that we've all seen that we had at the last meeting and then um the the thing I like to point out is total Urban growth in Waton County the line third line from the bottom um the the annualized for 2023 all the cities grew at 1.9% and Bellingham grew at 1.6% and I I know Ferndale and Lyndon think alike that we'd like to see Bellingham a little faster and I oh Michael you put up your hand shock to [Laughter] shock but realize that because Bellingham was so much larger in terms of the absolute growth we still take higher than our traditional historic share even though we're growing at a lower rate we just have a bigger base to started with so we actually are growing we're taking more than half of of the growth in the county even though we're going percentage wi to lower R yeah performing but not quite as much as that much but but but I'm worried about the last column where it's you know

that all the cities again are going to grow at 1.7% and Bellingham is at 1.5 for the next 20 years and that worries all numbers so um then I think the next is the map that we have on the table and now we have 20 minutes to talk about this as a group and um so next next slide So based on the ug where is this where you want your City to grow is one of the questions I have based on what we've seen and I know in Lyon um we're growing into an area that is prone to flooding uh seasonal flooding when there's certain weather conditions and it's expensive to develop there and we're already at a to develop there we're going to put a um a transportation impact fee of roughly 20,000 per unit which is not going to make it affordable housing just to say so it's the area we've been given to grow it's the area we have and there's not a whole lot of appetite to give us stuff that might be easier to develop um and so we take what we got Michael so thank you for that introduction and pointing out the difficulties in in all or many of case one of bingham's difficulties is that some of our Prime to be Annex areas have um infrastructural gaps or Price tags that come with us so I a conversation yesterday and I want to kind of go back to the spirit of the GMA and view it through the other end of the telescope GMA says that we should grow when there's existing infrastructure I think we fli that around saying we need put infrastructure where want to grow I see all this as an infrastructural problem I

could Annex this area I the city could decide to Annex areas if we could solve our or no we could solve our infrastructural needs otherwise we bankrupt ourselves who was this saying you were saying had no interest in in annexing probably because when you bite it off it maybe ruins your ability to function the city financially I mean to be clear I mean yeah we have no interest in annexing certain parts that would seem to be uh the the most logical place to go like like going going east um and the places where we do want to grow are the areas that don't have the infrastru so thank you let me just repeat my point one more time make sure I think we should think about solving the infrastructure problem which will then unlock the areas we can grow for residential and we get the industrial let's think infrastructure there too what power supplies needed what roads are needed uh what what water services needed so we can unlock industrial areas as well set all looking for 2 200 Acres okay what do we need so I would flip this and say that uh our Ann we would solve our annotation problems if we figure out want to grow by considering them to be infrastructure challenges and therefore money challenges and and I just tell into that and that's what Lyndon sees with our growth area it's infrastructure trouble that's why we put on this huge FCI or t Transportation impact me to to solve that problem because we don't want to pay for it as a city we want the the people who are going to move there

to pay for it yeah and SE all yeah I was going to say Todd mentioned the other day in a small email too we should look at Li and Tif financing because the way of local uh Revenue systems are will will never get that kind of money to put this up front those days are gone where City says we're going to Annex we will put the road in everything and then recover it we need to partner with private Capital we need to bring in private money where we whatever deals need to be made that is individual uh development thing but we must consider that as a part where some developers are willing to come and they are willing to take that money later when the other homes are get built so that is a mechanism only mechanism we have I don't think state will have that kind of money that uh we will be able to do infrastructure up front when we Annex something so we have to find our own ways of doing it and private capital is the answer that's only a look at and and and to certain that's what Lyon is saying when we do the the the transportation impact P we will also o use that in lie of infrastructure that the developer can put in and reduce the fee and we and that's a much more cost effective way to get infrastructure put in because as governments it cost us a lot Todd I just WR off that it's all gonna be private Capital up front to do these things but we got to we have to go to the state and make some ask about what might be possible for some of the infrastructure that gets the annexations going

but like the last time did this conf update the city bring their ug requests and you said there's no appetite for lynon to ask the county doesn't say here's your ug we're we're asking for State money we're asking for federal money and we're also asking for a large Transportation impact fee and and and somehow in the mix it might work are you asking for where do you want new growth potential where do you want new GGA from Ben I don't well the second question do we have enough for 20 years probably but if we need more we would I think naturally we will move west towards the guide but is that the best place to grow I can think of growing North off of Northwood where it's high Sandy ground that's reasonable Farmland but we crossed the badger which is a line that somebody said we can't cross the impediment we we draw the line where the ugas are and then they sit there for 10 years and they sit there for 20 years because we can't get past this when is it attractive for City to actually and Supply services and until we get past that where we draw the line what do much but we're we're growing into our Lyon's growing into I assume her's growing into the UTA noack has used their ug ever since maybe it's me and M I'm glad you said that yeah it's like your money and unless we can say here's some money to put in some of the infrastructure to expand up North Val now they don't have any financial interest to do it we don't have the money to do it and we'll just sit there for another 8 10

years well so F that you know we we actually uh we're going to Annex we going to just did Annex land for the first time in 15 years so almost all of our growth has come u in INF um where it's you know where we have the infrastructure in place already to be able to accommodate that growth we're we're running out of that and and so you know this next uh uh you know this next phase is going to require us to actually now growing our Urban growth boundaries um in a way that we haven't in 15 years but the the the big impediment there is you know we don't have the services out there and so you know we we done we we've grown where we could afford to grow where it was easy to grow now in order to grow um and you know we're we're on paper to grow you know faster than any other jurisdiction um but it's going to be harder and much more expensive and uh you we don't we don't actually have good resources um we're at the B Bar own Steel in order to figure out how to pay for the essential infrastructure we need in order to grow into you know our existing Urban growth area so the the infrastructure is the impediment for us uh start yeah uh I want to say that one of the communication gap is since we will be changing some of our Direction like I'm what I just said that governments don't have that money we need to communicate to the private sector in in very clear terms that what is acceptable for us as governments for new development once they know then we'll know the reaction I'm not saying

that the people are walking around with bags of money say let us do this but until we give a clear message clear communication or our policy that these are the things we are willing to do in our County and we can put these conditions that if you are developing this thing you have to have so much content of affordable housing that's not a bad thing but if the biggest thing is people need to know clearly what is the policy so that they can go make a plan and do their numbers and see what works for them to get their their Capital back when we are not when we leave it to individual uh uh partial individual developer and try to make that deal there are only people who have experience or only local people who know these uh curvy paths who will come forward but if we express clearly in our policies that we this is what we will this is our sphere of action I think that is something we can do we don't have money but we have a lot of in place that as policy changing we can make the biggest impact not with money but with changing policies here one of the we were Lyon City Council was able to meet on Monday and we were discussing growth talk about it yeah how's that one of the areas we got into is is the third bullet point there is your city growing fast enough or too fast we're seeing a problem in our community where we C with growth not only can we not afford to subsidize that growth in any fashion whatsoever we can't afford to maintain the services that we have now the level of

service uh and that would be police fire speaking simply a new home does not cover the cost to supplying services and as that expands and we get say 500 units that simply doesn't generate the income necessary to support the home and we're we're restricted by both where we can take the money from Impact fees don't pay for personel who doesn't get somebody in the car doesn't buy a car um so in my opinion at least for Lyndon we're growing too fast we we simply cannot afford to continue to grow because the level of service for those people already here continues to diminish every time we add a new house so I think that I don't know if the other cities are experiencing that or it's just ask misery L company does anybody know how to solve the Dilemma he just described I I'll give you my personal opinion you have a solution not a solution per sec it's we have to charge folks that are coming in to build a house exactly what it's going to cost us to the point of no you don't have to pay for one intersection you're going to have to pay a part of seven intersections because all those seven intersections are going to be impacted a pump station is going to be more than you put in a new pump station it's upgrading the three pump stations that continue down from that it's upgrading the sewer treatment plant it's upgrading the water facilities it's upgrading everything and that's going to be a huge number and that's going to make people pause and I have no doubt there's going to be push back

and at a time when we're trying to create affordable housing that does exactly the opposite but in some ways at least in my opinion we've surpassed affordable housing that's that's an imaginary thing now the best I can hope for is to create housing that you can work into because those lower level job I don't I don't know how with the land we have to develop we can make it affordable we just can't and I think we used to say in lynon well we want to have housing that our kids and our grandkids can buy and be part of so we're building stuff but you know it's The Californians the flight people from Portland and Seattle they're coming in with cash and buying these things that we you know kind of had in mind for our kids and our kids don't have cash but these Outsiders come in with cash and buy it and it's like okay so so who are we really building it for and is this really what we want but GMA says we have to grow so on that theory if some some tech exec who's making so much money that they don't want to be spending a million and a half for one bedroom one B house wants to come out here and lay down 800 Grand you're saying go ahead and charge them 925 because it's it's it's their fat cat money anyway coming in anyway let's at least pay for our infrastructure is that well going necessarily I want to gouge people from the outside what to gou everybody but like how do you do that not even gou but it's like okay we can't afford to do this we as a city can't afford to do this we're

going to go broke it's if you used a business model where you said hey we're going to cap your what you can charge anybody at 1% a year you can raise it 1% but what you got to spend is unlimited because the cost of your products Services wages everything else is going to go up but we're going to cap you here and there's only so much sales tax you're going to get you can only charge so much on fees um I think of the new uh Adu where we can only capture 50% once that goes through well that car still has the same impact as any other car on the street so I've got to make up for that somehow if we want to continue to grow otherwise we're doomed I I can fully appreciate what you're saying there I mean it does absolutely make sense um from like a dollar and cents spreadsheet state of mind so um I guess in my mind one of the things that maybe we should be doing is and you're all going to laugh at me right now because you've been indoctrinated to think this way [Laughter] but and I and I and I have been too I went to the environment so listen to what I listen to what I'm saying and you'll understand why I said you're going to laugh at me um what if we looked at ways to make those seven intersections cheaper and I'm not saying cheaper from this the sense of what is the labor cost what does the concrete or the asphalt for the rock cost I'm saying what can we do policy-wise like just Common Sense policy-wise what can we do to make that cheaper and um the biggest thing that comes to mind

and we're going to talk about it in my a um Talk is critical areas and the approach that we take to them because you know just look at say the roundabout at Hanigan Road how much land that that took up and um you know I don't know the particulars around the critical area is there but how much money went into just studying mitigating um doing all things that are in an area that wasn't functional anyway like if we could if we could do things to advocate for policies that were just common sense you know like um there's an intersection there already yet we're going to spend 2.1 million Dollar on a Wetlands delineation or a mitigation for you know 6 fet next to the road like is there is there any solution to that type of of um Ridiculousness and I'm going to call it that um to make those intersections cheaper and make uh you know I I think in the past I've used the example of the develop in Birch Bay who called me to come out and look at the 10x 10t section of canary grass we were saving that cost him $300,000 to bore under which the pits had zero water in them so how do you have a wetland if there's no water underneath um that's just added cost that didn't need to be there and it's absolutely the decisions that we make locally that add that cost so just just maybe take a different mindset to it of how can we think about some of these policies holistically that aren't going to damage the environment but also aren't going to add massive amounts of cost your next Lisa thank you Lisa

um gonna throw my two cents in and try to kind of bring it back a little bit to the ug um and this is my own concern not necessarily representing the full City but some of the ugas that are designated for Bellingham kind of like Ferndale they're pretty developed out and so when we talk about what does it cost for the city um you know you hear oh we'll get some you know some taxation from this but the reality is some of these locations to put in the fire to put in the police services when we're struggling financially to do that within City Limits I don't see a lot of benefit because the amount of housing we're going to be able to bring in isn't going to fully meet the need we'll have some infill the state has changed some of the rules but a lot of homeowners they got that quarter acre and they're not necessarily going to subdivide it and build another house on it there'll be a few there'll be some investors but for those who own those homes and you know they're established they're not necessarily going to divide and build so we're not going to be able to get the bang for our buck for what it'll cost the city to provide fully the services and get the additional housing so I'm interested in looking at areas that um we're going to be able to tie in our infrastructure that we need um that we're going to be able to do I hate the word green fill but we're going to be able to do larger tracks of housing perhaps Identify some areas that because we want to make sure we have services

that we'll be able to look and say we can put an Urban Village in here because now we're starting to get sprawl so we want to have those services but part of it comes down to policy Bellingham is fortunate that we have the low-income housing Levy so we get funds to be able to help subsidize some of the um more affordable housing but I think whether it's each municipality or it's the county or somehow United voice of as we go into our Collective ugas that um if it is more of that green fill where we're going to be able to work with those Developers and say you know there has to be benefit not just the housing but how much is it going to cost us to do the infrastructure because eventually we have the maintenance and we have the Staffing that has to go into it but to be able to carve out that by policy that there has to be a certain amount of um affordable housing or that they partner with some of our computer Our Community Partners for permanent affordable housing I don't want to just say culture Land Trust because there are others and you know the hope is maybe eventually we could entice other organizations to come in and work on that but you know I look at this opportunity is not so much how we're going to meet the needs in the next five years I'm hoping we have enough ability to grow there but how are we setting up for the next Generation who will be sitting at this table in 20 years that we're going to really be able to project the need we're not going to be able to keep

the people with the money who put the cash down um but how do we provide the housing for our kids and our grandkids that is going to be affordable and I don't believe in the build more and the the rate will go down the the movement through climate um migration and the fact that this is a desirable area because we have invested in our community that makes it an incredible place to live um are going to price out the people who are working at Walmart so how do we legislatively as a whole body for the County have United voice of how we're going to do that across each cities and not just you know Belling hands on butter base giving us money to be able to not do what we need but do a little bit more than maybe some people have the financial ability and I don't know if your citizens will be willing to do a taxation of sell through Ley because they don't always V to support their schools so how do we do this with partnership with the developers because they need to be enticed other than as a great place to live to be doing the building um we're going to have to invest in infrastructure and parks and everything else and so how do we plan for that but how do we also make that partnership through policy that we're going to be able to get some tracks of land for um our our Workforce housing is really severely needed but also the affordability for those people on the lower end of income so for me in Bellingham I want to be looking at not necessar the ugas that aren't going to give us

those opportunities but some of the peripheral land probably heading north of Bellingham that's going to give us that ability to partner with um development to bring in the housing but also bring in in those other opportunities by policy so I've got Dan Hamill online you want to speak Dan yeah I just wanted to follow thank you and good afternoon everyone I just wanted to follow up on what Alisa just mentioned and also what Michael touched on earlier um I know we're talking about ugas here but one step back from that is um the Urban Village plan that City Bellingham has created quite some time ago and that we are that we're working towards um filling in so it's 4% of the land Supply and the expectation is that those uh seven Urban Villages that are either designated or will be designated would take about uh 30% of uh in migration and um local growth so the so one in three people basically could be living in an urban uh Village area Oldtown as as you all know is is basically a a blank slate the port if they can if we can work things out there can also accommodate uh some some housing as well the idea is that it is it is close infrastructure it is close to um fire police uh uh sewer water response times can be uh I wouldn't say minimize but I think that they'd be far better than having to keep hiring up more and more police officers more and more firefighters to accommodate um expansion whether it's annexation uh or moving just directly into the to the ug so just wanted to make

that point that the city has a plan and we're sticking to it when it comes to um those Urban Villages thanks all right um we're getting to the end of the ug part um I guess I just want us as elected to think about what does housing look like for your communities in the future the fourth bullet and then I was it was a point at another meeting the other day is it really possible to create enough housing to get ahead of the curve anymore I mean or are we always just going to be behind and those are issues that I think we all face but the next issue we're going to talk about is if all these people come go ahead um anyway they're going to have to work somewhere so um the second part of this is jobs industry and jobs and this is the current mix of jobs in the county 92,000 total and next slide oh yeah so now we got the numbers at the bottom so the county population in 2022 is 230,000 it'll be 321 and 24 2045 so that's 39% growth and what happens when you do that we're going to need 36,000 37,000 new jobs and um that's quite a hill decline and if you look at the report from Watkin County that number would be the the high count and I'm going to turn it over to Tyler with the next slide Tyler there you go yeah so thanks everybody thanks Scott for inviting me uh and thanks for the privilege of being the one of two non-elected at the table I try to get away from County planning as best as I can but I I can never probably leave it um so P of Bellingham economic development director in um

want to talk a little bit about the the employment numbers and um the data that you'll see today is from the Leland report so the data that the planners of the city and the county are utilizing and and I would just say my history and background in comp plan and discussion there hasn't been a lot of conversation about employment about commercial industrial and and where those lands are and how they get accomplished and so we just wanted to to kind of talk through it a little bit so um from 2010 to 2011 um this is just a historical employment growth by sectors um so we're looking at construction manufacturing wholesale trade retail trade I think it's important to also think through um High wages as it relates to these types of um sectors to think about what type of sectors we want to grow towards you'll see in the last 11 years or so construction's um grown at 54% um Healthcare Services is 44% so those are kind of the two uh largest most most sectors that have grown and we've seen a reduction oddly enough in government by 10% and uh 4.1% in accommodation in food services so maybe some sectors that we haven't seen as much grow Tyler which which of those numbers because Scott had a add SE where would that resource and utilities so well that number is smaller than Scott had for oh the one above yeah the servic 4000 let me look real quick then those this was this is just thinking population and saying each sector has to grow by the same percentage population is growing but the

population was high I think that was the ones so I don't I don't remember 321 is high low or medium B and and one point uh that is this the slide that Scott talked about is from the economic profile the slide that we looking through one next is from the Leland report looking at NES and using some background information so there will be a little bit of inconsistency between those two just because they're coming from different data sources when you look at ni's code uh a forestry fishing and hunting is in resources so when you look at resources and utilities that's where you see any of the Agricultural fishing or hunting in that section so the numbers right there could be some inconsistencies but I would focus on that and it's not that you know that the conversation here is where have we seen growth in in the employment where do we want to see growth in the employment SE as as these are the medium um uh growth projections that we're talking about um with just like that we moving forward if we're spending money to to deal with these projections shouldn't we also keep in mind what the nature of the growth is if we're getting a lot of people moving up here to not work because there's a lot of people moving up here that are are retiring or are tech people who figured that they could be sitting in their house in Seattle or sitting in a cheaper house here so that's not necessarily going to mean that the number of jobs has to increase like some of these projections make it look like

that's one of the questions at the end of this section is work atome people how does that factor into this do we have any I mean is I mean we all like to talk about it but is it a is that a number that's even significant like are there are there thousands of people that live up here and tell you since I think there has been some analysis of work from home num has done some some statistical work weally Val housing preference survey and part of that was your work habits and so out of that sample there around 10,000 we said sample back um it was uh 20 somewhere between 24 and 26% were working remote um more than one day a week so they were doing you know well I guess my question is are these new people that have just come up here once they realize Zoom was a thing that that's kind of because that's kind how we always present it and I do the same thing I just cuz a lot of people can home you know but but if I think the people that we're worrying about or are talking about in this sense or Zoom happened and all of a sudden these are new folks coming here that from Seattle with all their billions of dollars and pushing out our children is that a real thing or is it just something think is a real thing soan for example been seeing thatan a beautiful place to live and if you can tell it you a lot of people move span and so Spokan now has enous housing challenge I mean I very similar we're a great place to live so it's a real thing I feel like I talked to a lot of people in Point

Roberts that are in that boat but in reality it's like four people that I talk to that let me better because they could but my town bla gets retirees too like we we have a whole section of Blain is pretty well a retire red destination so so I'm just saying when we're when we're figuring out how much stuff to build in relation to jobs it might not match the total number of people coming in when you correctly factor that stuff in it would be nice to have a handle on that particular thing because if it's relevant it's interesting so um the the the next slide here is uh the middle projections from the lelan report on growth by jurisdiction and jurisdiction GGA so um in total the idea would be from the middle projection 24,200 new jobs uh remember Scott talked about the high projection which was about 39% that's 37,800 new jobs and when you think through that uh Bellingham would see as it relates to I believe historical growth percentages to projected growth to 2045 about 15,000 new jobs across the sector uh but in Birch Bay ug you would only see 124 new jobs the second biggest number there is on other Rural and we didn't even talk talk about what we're putting housing but the leing report had like basically zero job Cherry Points so where are all these other rural [Music] 3,43 the 15,000 in Belling I would anticipate that that would be some rural Cottage housing or some um infill into the land roads it's a good question but is it I mean is it a real estate as well as the the

resource um sector being agricultural Hunting Fishing and and and and Forestry would be a part of that 3,400 jobs as well I I'm surprised too in the city of L we have a lot of work from home single people working in their own business it's pretty high number and that will happen anywhere in the county as well because they can just work from their they can start a business at their house and it's gone and I think um Todd one of the the the other data points to your question is in 2021 uh the E rural had about 14% of the jobs countywide Bellingham had 62% so so agricultural forry those percentage those types of jobs would be in that other rural um classification so the the next um slide was kind of breaking it down just a little bit further to Industrial there's been a lot of conversation about light impact industrial heavy impact industrial and just general like manufacturing jobs so when you look at that type of sector um where is the growth anticipated to go and when you think about these numbers I would emplore you to think about the lands that are zoned for these purposes in your jurisdictions and think about how that can be accomplished um so in Bellingham in Middle projection 2900 2820 uh new jobs uh for industrial purposes this could be a breakdown of light impacts um maybe slight high impact in manufacturing uh in Birch Bay 22 22 over a 20year period now that actually hits pretty true because there's not industrial zoned lands in Birch Bay is just commercial and and

Retail so something to think about in in in Cherry Point in Cherry Point it projected based off past 450 um and think through from a county perspective the heavy impact industrial and and how that plays out with three large land owners and what the anticipated development for those large land owners are or or not and how that relates to a very large area of industrial zone property in I think the one of the factors we have forgetting that what the impact of artificial intelligence is going to be on the jobs like what has happened in just last two years maybe these projections didn't take seriously into account the impacts the impacts which are going to come in next 5 years that's when we will start feeling about it that what the impacts are even construction industry is going to be transformed just a sec so so I think that is another factor which we don't know so um what we wanted to do was just stimulate the conversation a little bit with the the the the job projections um talk about historical Trends recognize that we're currently looking at projecting future Trends based off of that and um think to yourselves can lynon grow that many jobs in the location and the zoning that we have for it um without good way family paid wages um affordability becomes harder so there is absolutely that connection between the two and I think Scott has some open discussion kind of bullet points um and I can add some additional ones because as sa Paul had indicated earlier um the port and and

kind of with my discussion and and and Direction has will be maybe taking one more step with the comp plan to talk through the employment lands and the employment study and in coordination with the comp plan conversation and have that kind of scoped and framed up already so my first thought was you know how can we promote more industrial industry in the county because I think the industrial jobs often are higher wage jobs and we like those jobs for our citizens because then they can afford the housing of putting up um or do we really want more IND jobs I mean that's there's people in the community that say we don't need any Michael that's surprise again yes we definitely want industrial jobs fun fact ellingham is a manufacturing center of the county right but we're not talking about Cherry Point kind heavy industrial there's a huge range of commercial and light industrial and there's a lot of jobs there um I am very protective of what industrial lands we have I've asked our planning director for one thing it's to review our definitions of industrial like s Paul has mentioned not to eliminate industrial but to make sure it's the right kind of industrial that works only a half mile away or quarter mile away from housing But to answer the earlier question how on Earth do we pay for infrastructural growth because Housing Development does not pay its way I'll tell you how you make sure you have enough commercial and Industrial land and maybe get a little more every time you grow

residentially you better be growing commercially as well that's how we make our books bounce and so yeah we definitely need Industrial and Commercial lands I'm very what we have and I want a countywide discussion because I'm fine if there's industrial land near Bellingham as well as in Bellingham so I would like us to plant it seriously about enough Industrial and Commercial lands because that's actually going to solve our other problems because you can afford housing if you've got a good job and you you can't if you don't so I think it's I think it's really important um for the for our Municipal finances for housing affordability um for a lot of things that we really need to look very very carefully the invest land you have and like I said unlock it with infrastructure BR Todd then Gary so BR one of the things I think that we need to be really Cog know when we talk about this industrial expansion is the needs for electricity we've had several businesses come to in here interested and PSC which is our utility provider not being able to serve them um from that you know serve the needs that they needed at this point um I think going forward um you know changes in the building code and such to the demand for power electricity power um only increases and working with our uh utility providers whether it's h sour and Lane and Su have their own Electric utilities but that's going to be a critical key of all this and probably somebody needs to be at the table in this planning process

particularly we talk on industrial type stuff Todd you Kay scheduling a meeting with Brian H PC to talk about transmission capacity what we can do our zoning codes to facilitate that um I keep I got this map right in front me so we questions like yeah we want industry where is the best places right now where we could easily get infrastructure like if you're looking at a map particularly in unincorporated area Zoning for and what and what does it need like what where is Michael's poing up around Grand so like what you know we can again we can put a Zone code on the map what do we need to get there to make that usable well the Grand View goes back to Greg's comment earlier that's new growth area and it's going to take tons of in infrastructure and I think for linen when we're growing and we're trying to encourage egg based stuff which is processing which requires a lot of water and then you got to take care of the water with your shwer plan and so we're kind of planning for that growth I know great is not expecting a lot of industrial growth to be a Cherry Point I mean that's what this industrial land study is supposed to inform us better on this very topic because Cherry Point electricity infrastructure that's the stuff I just don't know exactly water but there is a lot of suable infrastructure out of point for that area actually carry a fair amount of heavy industry you know but the the voice that's not at this table that really is the the the Lyin to further industrial

growth out of herit point is the Lum nation and so without them at the table without them you part that discussion any discussion about F theary point is it's a it's a waste of time unless unless their voice is included in this discussion because they have the ability to literally just say no and it's done that's why we're Point here yeah well we're happy to take it and also I don't think that I don't think the employers at Cherry Point been quiet about this the land that they acquire around their facilities they're not there to expand it's there to protect and I think that um you know I think BP made that very clear to Nation when they bought the SSA Marine property that they weren't planning to do anything with it keep people away Gary go so back to employment so in all of your studies you go around the county and you see that people can't get help so we're talking about where do the jobs come from but who has figured out how many jobs in the county are going wanting because people don't want to work you how much unemployment do we have this voluntary I guess you could call it that but you go up and down the street stre of any one of our cities and and people are begging for people they need help and they can't get it so you know you the Figures were up there we're going to need so many jobs we've got a lot of jobs fulfilled now and we can't get them and so that's another problem but has anybody in your studies figured out what what what is the rate of of of jobs that need

to be filled right now just to fill in what we have deficiencies for or for that matter the rate of people who have simply left the job market right because we're we're in historically low unemployment rate um and we're told by economists that you know part of that is due to people who have just stopped looking so do we know how many people have actually stopped looking do we know if that's actually you know truly you know people who don't want to work or is that truly uh an issue of we don't have the population base um to fill the those jobs that actually don't pay um you know a living wage right so we don't even know the nature of the problem necessarily unless I don't know if we've done any of that that study or whether that information is available how many people are on Sidelines you got refus I you could say 2,000 jobs going wanting well that absorbs a of ,000 that absorb the third of them just if somebody wants to come and get a job and I know there's different levels of that there's higher lower wages with their jobs well a good example is the county wants to hire um people for the jail I think there's 14 openings at the moment yeah and they just go unfilled and and we all know they're government jobs so they pay well and they have good benefits and so but you can't fill them yeah you can't find people to fill them I think the other part which don't we don't consider is the disconnect of our education system and the need in our community or need throughout our nation

when we do as a nation we start issuing h1v visas we give like 75,000 h1v visas every year whereas we have our own kids because they are not rightly educated like look at we are the unique County in whole Washington state which has four colleges so I mean you know that we keep generating graduates with paper degrees and everything but when it comes to actual employment and skills employable skills they're missing it's complete disconnect I pay kids $20 an hour to run a weed eater I pay someone $25 an hour to sit in a little building and sell be $25 an hour they can sit there and their book and I cannot eat or find employees 25 bucks an hour when I started at BP Cherry Point out of college with a four year degree I made $19 28 I can't get somebody for 25 bucks I'm old you old question are serious they're and and but they're not ours fixed right here and right now so just bring this back I think the principle for me is we need to make sure we have enough commercial and Industrial land my impression is we might by the Numbers barely have enough but I don't quite believe it when Bellingham grows I want to make sure we're bringing in some commercial industrial land in there and if we have to lose or discount current industrial land I like that Paul was saying let's look where we can put some more because I do think uh looking at the wages side is going to help us with our housing issues so before we move on to the next topic somebody asked me so what in my you know what's What's

My outcome from this and what what I'd like to see and I said bellingham's Urban growth area or Urban growth Reserve be from Hanigan to Northwest Avenue to Smith yeah I only draw that and it's it's it's it's a reasonable expectation that that's where grow so why not start planning for open it all up anyway and undoubtedly Michael's already scratching on the map like a w of a graceful country I accept your offer you tell me you won't anything until we get money on yeah my infastructure run first and it's the same thing with industry like until we get the resources to make it attractive for the infrastructure to go there some designate but then we do things like make policies that uh don't incourage growth in the already industries that we have like I'll give an example no more tanks unless they're strictly for renewable the problem is the reality on the ground is nobody in wam county is doing strictly renewable fuels it's a blend of seed stock so we've hampered the the existing business to grow without one without one um land use policy that says you can't build a tank unless it's solely for renewable Fu so we've got to move on to the egg section because Ben is just itching to talk so I have some data on egg here that I did in earlier but here's here's in 2022 versus 2017 the number of farms you can see it's down about 150 though the farmable acres is roughly the same the average Farm size is 65 acres versus 60 back in 2017 and then Farm by size you know 80% of them 80% of

them are under 50 acres there's just a ton of small farms out there where where did you get this data uh the source is the USDA nass site and it's the 2022 sensus yeah andely so yeah so you can see and then I'm just going to speculate but the 500 to th000 and th000 plus Farms they're the ones that are generating the money oh and the jobs and the jobs um I would argue you would okay yeah I'm will'll lay that do you you obviously didn't read my paper I did I read it all the day whole thing because I got it this morning I read but I didn't adjust my or my thinking oh no you're I'm not I'm not arguing yeah I'm just saying that I would argue that the um the smaller Farms probably are have more jobs than a larger are they per less mechanized or yeah per acre so here's here's the market value of the products 510 million uh in 2022 versus 372 back in 2017 interesting government payments is a pretty low piece of this whole thing I don't know what Farm related income is but it was on the thing so I added it and then the costs are listed there uh so 117 million income from farms in wat County in 2022 um which I think that's ridiculously low if you look at economics don't just the 47 million that's money going through the economy yeah that's good well and and and that's even ridiculous yeah and these are the numbers Nas gives us so I'm using them as a base this point and um what's the next slide it shows it um yeah what's fascinating to me here is dairy fruit cattle Nursery potatoes are

the top five and they make up 95% of the income so um and yeah I was I guess I'm knowing what's going on I was surprised fruit which is raspberries and blueberries wasn't at the top and DA's still at the Top If You just if you if you just do the the this the math on the volume of milk that's produced yeah SE it's a big number yeah so and then last slide is farm value by so you know again 60% of the 70% of the Farms are producing income of less than 10,000 and then and I'm guessing the 266 more than 100,000 um those are actually people making money farming and actually could give up their day job which is I'm sure something Ben's going to talk about I I my farm generates more than 100,000 and I could in a million years give up your day job my job you come too comfortable without that high income all right uh the questions that I had or Ben you want it now you want comment or well I I have probably more than minutes of conversation and basically what I wanted to do here which is typic typical of what I always want to do is challenge the status quo um and I say that because I'm I'm speaking to you not as somebody who like studies the industry even though I do I'm going to speak to you from my experience of being the next generation of farmer in wton County um somebody who you might look at my last name and say that you know this kid was has been set up for life to be a farmer um but in reality that's not exactly how my life is panned out um uh well I well I do farm land that my

that my dad is um helping me with that just started like the last year or two before that I every everything I've done I've bought with my my own dollars for my 16th birthday I got a pair of barn boobs um I've been milking cows I started milking cows when I was 14 before school and after school and I never left the job market since then my last day in college was June 12th of 2001 I started at BP Cherry Point on June 13th of 2001 the very next day and that job is the only reason I've been able to afford to be the next generation of farmer in Walkin County and that's an important concept to remember as we talk about this um can you throw my paper up there I'm just it's a Word document yeah I um can you share mine I'm just gonna I'm just going to I'm not going to read you the entire document but only 15 pages it would be a long well a lot of it is my citation so I wrote this paper uh in 2014 Just prior to the 2015 comprehensive Plan update and as I read reread it the other day it was just shocking to me the relevance of all of it to this conversation and um the title of the paper is Planning and Zoning helping or hurting wman County's purs pursuit of preserving 100,000 acres of farming by farmer B um so the other day while on a break from Driving My Tractor I was reading an issue of Acres USA the voice of ecoagriculture it is a national monthly publication that focuses on the name as the name implies agricultural issues specific to natural organic ecologically friendly Farmers

I was particularly drawn in by the opinion article in the front of the magazine written by Martin Harris a freelance writer and Dair replacement heer farmer the piece was titled Planning and Zoning fails to embrace mini a Paris noted the extraordinary growth in the mini Farm a sector referring to it as new agriculture he described it as typically small acreage niche market organic incense and boldly states that one would expect the Planning and Zoning fraternities and bureaucracies to be tweaking their land use design standards and enabling regulations that enhance the viability of new agriculture but in some states the opposite seems to be happening it would be no exaggeration to observe that the entire smart growth movement seems to reject almost entirely he goes on to give examples of how planning and zoning regulations such as minimum lot size prohibition of non-government inspected food sources and maximiz in property tax revenue have an immediate effect on the viability of agriculture in a given area as a fifth generation Walkin County farmer and current member of the walkin County Planning Commission naturally this article stirred up some questions in my mind it is well documented that Wen county is intent on preserving 100,000 acres of land to sustain a viable agriculture economy this goal is being carried out through public policies that the minimum lot sizes transfer of development rights the critical areas ordinance and other land you thre ations in the

agricultural zone of wam County this article made me Ponder the question is wam County's Planning and Zoning helping or hurting is pursuit of preserving um I don't know how I would love for everyone in the room to read this because um I only picked like four different topics but almost all of it um I could probably pick 20 topics to write on and the first thing I hit on is our critical area work and it's effect on Agland and its preservation and I'm sitting entirely too close to Mark to get to go into this but um basically uh the purpose of the CAO is to protect Wetlands flood planes critical Aqua for recharge areas and habitat conservation areas by applying the best available science to ensure no net loss of eological functions and values protect species listed as threatened or endangered and their habitats the county has adopted the CAO under the authority of the growth management act um right on down the line then uh it's important to note that the walkin County critical areas ordinance is specific to Walkin County even though it is mandated it's a mandate of the state different municipalities throughout the state comply with state law in different ways the point of the GMA is to make land use decisions on a local level so what does all this mean to wam County Farmers nothing as long as your farm does not fall into a critical area however remember a critical area is either a critical aquer recharge area a wetland a geologically hazardous area a frequently flooded area or a

fish and wildlife habitat conservation area which includes all fish bearing streams so per artical areas ordinance it is safe to assume based on this definition and looking at the critical area ordinance map supplied by wam County PDS staff almost every parcel in wam County's azone could be classified as having a critical area on or around it which would then subject it to the provisions of the CAO the CAO does not disallow farming practices ongoing Agriculture and that's Mark and I had numerous discussions on that that term ongoing agriculture activity shall be permitted within critical areas and or their buffers in accordance with the standards of this chapter present to an approved conservation program established by this section this program shall be subject to continued monitoring adaptive management to ensure that it meets the purpose and intent of this chapter as long as a farmer is willing to adhere to a farm plan which severely limits the Farm's ability to make land use decisions that help protect Farms ability to remain in agriculture on them Ben you Ben you made the point I I think you know there's a lot more to discuss I totally understand where you're coming from and it's valid yeah but we don't need to hear 15 pages of your paper no I'm not reading your 15 pages of paper I'm just going through the critical area as part yeah no me anyway right but the comp plan enables everything down the line right a different sure but we're also discussing whether we're going

to enroll in the um VSP and right on down the line and in order to do those things we have to enable it with our comp plan and so that's why I think it's important to have these types of discussions so I basically what I'm to lay out here and um I would argue and I have in this paper that a lot of our land use policy that we have in place uh if you ask anybody in Bellingham what kind of egg do you like to see they're probably going to tell you something that looks a lot like medium sized organic direct Market farm right and um in fact when you look at the growth projections economically mediumsized organic is direct Market Farm is the fastest growing economic sector within the ha bone my experience as a farmer as the president of the Farm Bureau and um a W County Rural resident is that our land you policy is probably the biggest hindrance to be able to deliver what the community is asking for um so we all know that the that the U minimum lot size in the a zone is Acres okay so 40 acres of prime soil with water rights when I wrote this paper I said was $20,000 it's probably closer to $45,000 H so we're talking one parcel in the EG zone is going to cost $1.65 million and that's if you can Finance it right and so one of the things that we've looked to to preserve agriculture is transfer of development rights okay but and I have it all laid out in here the number of farmers who have off- farm jobs that off Farm job keeps you from getting a USDA loan you talk to the USDA hey I'm a

farmer I would like a loan oh but you generate more than $50,000 of off farm income or on farm income so you don't qualify for this program so what's happening to people like myself is my only option is traditional financing okay well the only thing the bank puts value on is the value of the land the value of the land comes from the development right so when Grandpa decides to sell his development right to protect the farm he's actually making it so no one else can buy it in the future unless your Raider Farms you know infield Farms one of the big guys and I and trust me I'm not pooing large agriculture you know I I love all a equally so don't take this that I'm poo pooing back but I think what our community is looking for and I think where we see a lot of economic drivers is actually in the smaller EG setting where we can provide probably more GS um per acre um because it's less mechanized so gred $50 an hour job probably not okay so so I guess I want to egg is another piece of this puzzle I guess and you bring out some really valid points about these so you're pull your data back up on the farm Side by a and I just want to point out that um there was a study done in 2013 and it said that the dairy industry was a $5 billion economic driver for the state of washington5 billion um very large study done at WSU 20% of the dairy cattle in the state of Washington reside in Walking County So 20% of A5 billion doll economic driver a billion would be a billion one billion so when I

look at when I look at the economic value not just oh yeah it's it's the economic engine that is the Dair So 20% of the base of that drive is right here in W County but we don't do things here to harvest all of that driver yeah we have dairy gold right here in Lyon but that's producing dry milk yeah which is just going and sitting in a storage facility for the government somewhere right we don't have we don't we aren't actively pursuing policies that encourage things like you know cheese production on Farm local Slaughter like pull up the cattle numbers none of those cattle are getting slaughtered here except for maybe four or 500 through lynon me so and Lyon meat is not USDA certified so we I I couldn't tell you how many semi loads a week leave wam County to be slaughtered in Kansas or Nebraska or Iowa me and myself myself personally I load my cows up that were born on my farm raised on my farm the only time they leave my farm is to get slaughtered and I drive them six hours to Odessa to get butcher e e e hey there can anybody hear us on seems you can hear us Brian this is Darcy can you hear me yeah I can hear you Darcy okay yeah I lost control here somehow maybe the owl in the main room died brother I got a message from Scott Cory saying he's having technical issues again okay the meeting is concluding I thought they were going to have uh some uh opportunity for public comment I guess can you hear me Dary yeah Bob I can hear you you now yeah yeah I I they may have an

opportunity for public comment but it's not going to be from us because they can't um hear us and we can't hear them and I I saw the same message from from Scott and he said the meeting's concluding saw the same thing you did so okay I'm gonna probably log off here um but uh if if it if it looks like it's coming back on maybe shoot me an email okay we'll do Bob all right thanks bye all right thanks bye darn it is crickets for e e for