Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Timeline To Allow Commercial Development

Ruston planner Rob White provided the following outline of what the process will be for updating the city codes so that the current moratorium on commercial development can be lifted:
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Amendment to the City's zoning code is a legislative process which involves the following steps:

1) A SEPA determination must be made and notice provided to the Dept of Ecology and other interested agencies.
2) Notice of the proposal must be given to the Dept of Commerce.  They require 60 days, but usually grant requests for expedited review, which is 2-3 weeks.
3) The Planning Commission will hold a work study session and public hearing on May 22 and hopefully forward a recommendation on to the City Council without the need for additional meetings.
4) I expect to have the amendments to Council for first reading on June 4 and then for second reading and passage at their June 18th meeting.
5) After adoption, the final ordinance is sent to the Dept of Commerce for filing, then sent to the codifier so the online code can be updated.
6) Upon adoption, I expect that the Council will remove the moratorium, which is required to be done by ordinance.

Hopefully the above gives you a better understanding of the process.
As you can imagine, this project has been top priority and will continue to be until it's completed.  The draft ordinances with details on the amendments will be available before the end of the week.  I set up a web page for the project, so check back on Friday for more info.  The link is here:

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