On Wednesday the Council acted to make important changes in the procedures for changing the comprehensive plan. Under the Growth Management Act comprehensive plan changes may be considered by a city or county once a year. While the county can consider proposals every year, it is not required.

"In the past the county has considered comprehensive land use changes every year," said Councilmember Dave Gossett. "Because of the time necessary to evaluate proposals this has created a very confusing process. Often landowners have to reapply for the following year's docket before they know if they have been approved in the current docket."

Changes made on Wednesday move the county to a staggered docket schedule. This ordinance changed the docket process so that proposed amendments to the comprehensive plan and development regulations are evaluated and given initial consideration once per year, then grouped into batches of minor and major amendments for processing. Final action on batches of minor amendments will take place no more than once every two years and final action on batches of major amendments will take place no more than once every four years.

Another significant change is the county council is not required to take final action on any proposed amendment and proposals can be delayed to a future batch of amendments. If the most recent buildable lands report shows no need for additional residential capacity, proposals for UGA expansions will only be accepted if they include compensating UGA reductions.

"While not completely eliminating overlap the changed cycle should create less confusion," said Gossett. "In addition, considering major changes every other cycle will allow staff and the Council the necessary time to fully review the proposals."

Major changes include those that expand urban growth boundaries, make substantial changes to the comprehensive plan policy language, significantly change the land capacity, or cannot be analyzed for environmental impact within the available time frame.

"Doing the docket process every year takes a lot of staff and Council time," noted Gossett. "One of the reasons important development changes like the urban design standards and improvements to the rural cluster ordinance took so long was lack of staff resources. Going to every other year will make it easier to work on other important land use projects."