Building_development

1:40:20 at the core of the decision is a simple but critical reality. Housing and employment land must be planned together, and both must be truly buildable, not just theoretical on paper. As highlighted in our submitted comments, much of the land currently identified for development is constrained by critical areas, environmental limitations, and topography. These constraints significantly reduce what is actually feasible to build. When we overestimate capacity, we unintentionally create a shortage of both housing and employment land, which drives up costs, pushes families farther from where they work. That imbalance has real consequences. Longer commutes, increased infrastructure strain, and reduced economic competitiveness. We strongly support the Planning Commission's recommendation

1:41:18 in addition to a strong look at site-specific requests for rezoning. Those property owners who submitted requests deserve a fair review on their own, and this council has yet to do so. This can help ensure that growth is directed to areas with infrastructure, services, and local planning alignment, rather than based on assumptions that may not reflect real-world conditions. Ultimately, we encourage you to support an approach that reflects realistic, buildable land capacity, preserves and expands employment lands, and meaningfully increases housing opportunity. This is a pivotal decision. Getting it right will share affordability, will shape affordability, economic vitality, and quality of life in Clark County for decades to come.

1:42:16 Thank you again for your consideration. - Thank you. Let me just ask the audience here, how many additional people would like to speak? Okay, quite a few. I've been asking for a break, five-minute break. We will come back at 10 'til. Thank you for your patience. (dramatic music) - This webinar is being recorded and summarized. - Okay, we're back from our break. If folks can settle back down, and we'll continue our public hearing. So, Ms. Shelley, call the next person. - Gary J. Goodwin?

1:43:12 Gary J. Goodwin? - We can circle back here. - Okay, I will move on to the next person. Marvin Gearing? - That's G-E-R-I-N-G. My name is Marvin Gearing. I live at 21115 Northeast 10th Avenue, just south of the battleground exit. I'm located directly across from the Washington State Department of Transportation's Future Regional Transportation Center. I've lived here for over 50 years, and for the last 30 years, we've been promised

1:44:11 and put under an urban industrial holding as part of the Discovery Corridor Plan, which has created great uncertainty. Without knowing if or when it's going to be commercial, industrial, or kept residential keeps us all from being able to make informed decisions in the future regarding our business, residence, or estates. The urban holding has created a cloud over our properties. Currently, there's a patchwork of over 12 commercial or industrial businesses already operating legally and illegally between 209th and 219th Street on 10th Avenue. Businesses such as excavation companies, two truck repair shops, livestock feed stores,

1:45:10 portable sanitary service, drop box waste removal companies, asphalt contractors, and others, including the Washington State Department of Transportation properties are using these and not all legal. Clearly, there's a certain need for zoning for business along this corridor, which highlights the reason it was originally identified and planned for future commercial and industrial growth with its proximity between two major exits, that's 179th and 219th. They're both along the I-5 corridor. A new water main and high-voltage transmission lines have been installed along 10th Avenue for current and future use.

1:46:06 It's already there, along with the sewer line in Maine that is currently brought in and located on the Washington State property of their transportation center to serve this area, but it cannot be legally utilized until the properties are brought into the urban growth boundaries. We're asking the county council for our property to be brought back into the urban growth as indicated on the proposed maps prior to January of this year. As we have been promised and as has been planned for for the past 30 years. - Thank you very much. Your time is up. - Yeah, thank you. - Wendy Cleveland.

1:46:54 - All right, Wendy Cleveland, C-L-E-V-E-L-A-N-D. I urge the council to adopt alternative one and further deny battleground site-specific request. It falls to our moral character whether we choose to be good stewards of the land in the time in which we live. Do we preserve or exploit it for its resources? The choices you make here today will not just affect the land, but also the people who currently live on it, the wildlife, the water, and the entire ecosystem. That land is over our aquifer. It's a sponge and a filter for the drinking water we all enjoy. Your choice on this matter affects so much more than just who controls the land. The city of battleground made a site-specific request for 450 acres of beautiful wild land to be brought into the UGA,

1:47:53 land that has Mill Creek, a large fish-bearing stream, running the length and breadth of it, land that Jose Alvarez himself told us in an email that he estimates that more than 200 acres of it has ag capabilities. People live on that rural five-zone land. It's all privately owned. They have built their homes, raised families, and lived their lives along the stream banks and under the sheltering canopy of old-growth trees. You'll hear the argument that it's all just commercial or industrial land anyway, and the current business at Dollar's Corner are an eyesore, but that's not true. And if the county planning commission or the staff had gone out there, they would have seen that beauty themselves. If you vote to approve their request and extend the UGA out to 67th Avenue per BG's request, there will only be more urbanization, not less. Trees and streams are not an eyesore, but factories and industries are. I would like to contend that Battleground

1:48:50 already has enough land to meet the 2045 comp playing goal of 7,500 jobs in their existing city limits. In fact, in their already zoned light industrial land, there are roughly 100 acres left. 60 of those remaining industrial acres have been bought by a company that vows to build a large convention center, a church, and a hotel, maybe 45 year-round jobs. Those are nonconformative uses in an industrial zoned land. In order to be able to build nonconformative in an industrial zoned land, there must be surplus industrial land somewhere else within the city limits. I figured that could not be the case. Otherwise, why would Battleground tell the planning commission that they don't currently have enough land to meet their job goal? Has the chair or any other member of this council besides Councilor Young been out to see this land that you're gonna be voting on to decide the fate of today? It seems like local politicians have lost their way. Instead of searching for truth and justice,