[Skamania] 🗺 Who Actually Plans the City? - August '26 Stevenson Round-up

Stevenson's county planner counted the city's apartment-zoned land and reported back that in his opinion Stevenson does not need more of it. The Planning Commission recommended a rezone anyway, then asked to be put to work on a comprehensive plan nobody at City Hall can explain. Ten days later the City Council ended a three-year sewer fight and handed most of its 2027 housing work to Skamania County.

In This Episode

• The Attwell Road rezone, and the build-out study that said the city has 132 parcels already zoned for apartments and 22 of them sitting empty
• Why the commission attached a design overlay the applicant never asked for
• The state-mandated planning update Stevenson is already inside, with a comment deadline of September 20 and a December 31 completion date
• What the new sewer ordinance actually means if you own a working septic system
• The 2027 work plan, and why four of its seven policy projects belong to the county
• A failed city administrator search, new settlement authority for the mayor, and engineering standards last revised in 1999
• The volunteer fire department's recruitment problem, and why the chief calls it demographic
• Stevenson's median home price against the 2020 housing study's own definition of attainable

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Comment on the critical areas ordinance before September 20: the draft, the science memo and the flood chapter are all on Skamania County's update page. Comments go to Josh.Neblock@Skamaniacounty.gov
• Stevenson agendas, packets and meeting schedule, with meeting recordings at vimeo.com/cityofstevenson
• The city's proposed sewer ordinance page, where the signed and numbered version should appear
• The January 2020 Skamania County and City of Stevenson Housing Needs Analysis, the study the city's own follow-up work is marked "On Hold"
• Prior coverage: The Sewer Rewrite Gets Its Escape Hatch, Stevenson July '26 and Parking Reform Comes to Stevenson, June '26

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey there, and welcome back to Open Gorge. If you live in Stevenson, August was the month a three-year argument ended and a different one started. So let's start at the planning commission on August 10th. Back in July, that commission had a rezone in front of it, a half acre on Atwell Road. The owners want to move onto it, retire there, and add five to seven rental units. To do that, they need the city to change the zoning from suburban residential to R3. That's Stevenson's multifamily zone. And in July, the commission stopped because somebody asked a question that at the moment nobody had an answer to. How much land does Stevenson already have zoned for apartments? So they sent staff away to count, and the person who did the counting is Josh Neblock. So the thing worth knowing about him, and he's come up in a couple of different episodes, it's because he's the lead land use planner for Scamania County and for the city of Stevenson. Same person, as Stevenson doesn't have its own planner, the county will do its own planning. We noted in the last episode that North Bonneville will soon transfer its planning over to Scamania County as well. His mapping software wouldn't cooperate that day, so he did it by hand, block by block. And here's what he found. 132 parcels inside city limits are already zoned for multifamily housing, but fewer than 15% of them have any multifamily housing on them. Twelve are churches, schools in the courthouse, buildings that will never be apartments, and 22 of them are simply empty. It seems like a lot of those lots are underutilized compared to their zoning. Seven of those empty lots sit directly across the street from the property asking to be rezoned. His written conclusion was blunt. The city has, quote, not even remotely approached its potential build-out. And it doesn't have a pressing need for more land zone that way. So the commission voted it down, right? No, the commission actually recommended approval. But not the rezone that was asked for, and here's how they got there. There's a design overlayer along Rock Creek Drive, same density as regular R3, but it adds some rules. Building spacing, off-street parking, open space, keeping some trees. And the commissioners worked out that on a steep half acre boxed in by two roads, those rules mean maybe you'd be lucky to fit three buildings, not necessarily ten. So the motion was to approve it, but only with that overlay attached. The applicant never asked for the overlay, but the commission added it anyway. So we don't yet know how each commissioner voted, they haven't published the minutes, and they're due in September. And then the moment that vote ended, the commissioner opened new business and said this, quote, this case to me, it screams, please put us to work on the comp plan, end quote. Because here's the problem underneath. Stevenson's comprehensive plan says what the city wants someday. So the zoning map looks at what's allowed today, and they don't always agree, and they don't often in many different cities as well. Part of the point of a comprehensive plan is to look ahead. And nobody that's left at City Hall knows why the map looks the way it does today. It's been the map since actually before 2017. And the people who drew it are no longer on staff. Which brings me to something that didn't come up at either August meeting, and you might want to know about it. Stevenson has already inside a state mandated planning update right now with a deadline at the end of the year. Swania County and the city of Stevenson are doing it together under an interlocal agreement. It covers critical areas, natural resource lands, shelter, and supportive housing rules. And state law sets the deadline at December 31st. Back in July, the county and the city filed their notice of intent with the state. And the public comment is open until September 20th. Comments go to Josh Neblock, the same planner who wrote the build-out memo. So if you have thoughts about how Stevenson protects wetlands, streams, that window closes on the 20th. Alright, moving over to City Council on August 20th. The sewer fight that we've been documenting for many months is now over. If you've been following this one, you actually know it's been running since about 2023. The city rewrote its sewer code, and this time it passed on a voice vote with two people speaking, both to say thanks. Scott Robinson told the council it'd been a very hard year and a half, quote, but it looks like that cloud is going to disperse, end quote. So what does it mean if you're on Septic System in Stevenson? If your system was lawfully approved and it still works the way it was designed, you can keep it, even if City Sewer runs right past your house. What triggers the connection is failure, the county health officer determining that your system has failed, not how close the pipe is, and not selling the house. If that happens, you'll get a written notice, you'll have 90 days to respond, 365 days to connect, and 90 days to appeal to city council. A timely appeal freezes every one of those clocks and blocks penalties while they're pending. Connect inside that year, and the city will waive the system development charge. That's the big one-time hookup fee. And there's an escape hatch. If your repair permit gets denied only because the law says connect, the council has to weigh what a repair would cost against what connecting would cost, and it may grant you relief. So two more things to watch. The ordinance doesn't have a number yet, and the version printed in the packet isn't quite what passed because an amendment was made out loud and written in afterward. We'll tie that all together for you in the next episode. So here's the item that we think kind of pulls the whole month together. Ten days after that planning commission meeting, the council got its work plan for 2027, and look who owns the housing work. The accessory dwelling unit code, which the city admits doesn't quite match state law, county planning, and the development code cleanup also county planning. The housing action plan for middle housing will be up to the mayor and also county planning. Four of the seven policy projects belonging wholly or partly to the county, the same office that had just told the planning commission that the city doesn't need more apartment land. One genuinely good piece of news in there. Downtown parking reform circling for two years finally has a date, fourth quarter of this year. We know that's a big issue across a lot of really small towns. Pursuing parking reform is a fascinating area of planning that is echoing across a lot of rural communities like ours, where there's lots of small, irregular, and historic lots that often need a little more creativity and exceptions to make sure that they're still usable and viable for long-term growth. A few quick ones. The city administrator search has failed, and the city's own paperwork says the candidate they selected decided not to take the job. So the council spent just under $18,000 more to repost it and keep an interim consultant on. The council gave Mary Taylor authority to settle legal claims, up to $20,000 on her own. And the city adopted engineering standards for the construction that had not been updated since 1999. The fire chief brought the hardest news of the night, and it wasn't about fire season, which has thankfully been more quiet. It was about who's left to answer the calls. He should put the share of the community over age 65 at about a third. Quote, firefighting is a young person's game. The apartment lost its assistant chief and two more firefighters to out-of-state moves this year, end quote. Which brings me back to housing one last time, because that actually is a really big piece of the story about how you get both people to move to an area and also stay in an area so that they can fill essential services like firefighting. In January of 2020, Stevenson, the county and the Port of Scamania paid for a housing study, define middle housing as homes priced under $368,000. In 2019, the median home in Stevenson sold for $337,000 under the line. Unfortunately, that today that median is about $665,000. The city's own webpage for the follow-up work says in its status field, on hold. And the housing that's getting built in Scamania County? It's 14 homes on seven acres in Carson by a nonprofit land trust, nothing yet in Stevenson. But as we can see, there's a lot of different lots that might be a really good candidate. One last thing. The 2020 study had an advisory committee, and on it was Kevin Waters, who also runs the Scamania Economic Development Council. Stevenson also pays the council, and he's your state representative for the 17th District. Washington's legislature is part-time, so it's not unusual for somebody to have two roles. It's just what a county of 12,000 people looks like. I'm sure he's somebody who would also love to hear your thoughts on housing and how we can keep this community moving forward. So what's next? September 14th, 6 p.m., the Planning Commission. That's where those August minutes should land. September 16th, Council Budget Workshop on City Revenue. On the agenda, not on the city calendar yet, so check before you go for the link. September 17th, 6 p.m., the regular council meeting, and September 20th, that comment deadline on critical areas ordinance. You can read the whole thing with every number and link in the written dispatch at schemania dispatch.com. You've been listening to a production of opengorge.org, home of the Scamania Dispatch, and the Click of Tatler. We believe in informed communities are stronger communities. To support our work and stay up to date on everything happening in the gorge, head over to schemania dispatch.com to sign up for our newsletters. You can also find us on Facebook at basebook.com/slash opengorge. Join the conversation and share your thoughts on today's episode. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll talk to you next time.