The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG - Up against a deadline to make a recommendation regarding the preliminary plat proposal for the Whoopemup Meadows subdivision here, the Waitsburg Planning Commission chose to recommend disapproval on Sunday evening. However, they appeared to make that recommendation anticipating that the Waitsburg City Council will reject it and will instead require the commission to gather more information.

This would allow the city and developers, Warren Land Co., the time they need to make informed decisions. The next regular Waitsburg City Council meeting is Feb. 12, at which time they are expected to take up the issue.

K.C. Kuykendall, who is both a planning commission member and a city council member, said Sunday that he felt the “right answer” would have been for the city to modify the code to allow an extension for the purpose of obtaining the information needed to make a recommendation. “Since it wasn’t on the agenda, even though all the council members wanted to do that, they couldn’t do that,” Kuykendall said.

“The suggestion to us by our legal counsel was for the planning commission to recommend a disapproval of the application – send that to council – council can then say, ‘We want to send this back to the planning commission because we want these things to be considered,’” Kuykendall said. “This will give us the time we need to get us the information we need to make a decision. It also means there is no formal disapproval so the applicant won’t have to reapply, pay application fees and start over. It just means that we’re still in the preliminary plat approval stage,” he added.

Sunday’s meeting was attended by Commission Chair William Potolichio and members: Larry Johnson, Stan Bly, Kuykendall, Marie Gagnon and Brian Callahan. Member Karen Gregutt was absent. Johnson, Bly and Callahan joined the commission for the first time.

Last week The Times reported that the city had received commission applications from Johnson and Bly and that the city could approve those applications - to fill two empty commission seats - at the Jan. 21 city council meeting.

Callahan submitted his application late Tuesday afternoon and was added to the list for consideration. Callahan is a captain for Waitsburg’s volunteer fire department and said he can offer important input on how a development might affect the fire department.

“The fire department does all the flow testing for the city and I’m abreast on what the flows here in town are,” he said. In addition, Callahan has worked construction and has some experience in laying underground utilities.

Rather than reject one of the applicants, the council, on Jan. 21, voted to appoint all three and amend the city ordinance to add an additional seat on the commission. However, council members said that they will amend the ordinance at their February meeting, because that change was also not on the current meeting’s agenda.

But at Sunday’s planning commission meeting, all three of the new members were seated. After a call to order, Bly excused himself from decisions or discussion with respect to Whoopemup Meadows, citing a perceived conflict of interest, should he be hired to do plumbing work for the development in the future.

The meeting was opened for public comment and Gene Warren, one of the plat approval applicants, questioned the order of business. City Clerk Randy Hinchliffe explained that the commission would vote on a recommendation – approval, disapproval or approval with conditions – to send on to city council. Hinchliffe noted that the time frame in which to make the recommendation ended the next day, Jan. 26. Public comment was closed.

Kuykendall explained that, at the last planning commission meeting, the commission requested additional information from the developers, including a preliminary Storm Water Management Plan and a Traffic Impact Study, but it wasn’t reasonable to expect that back in the required 14 day time frame.

Kuykendall moved to disapprove the proposal and Johnson asked about the possibility of a conditional approval. Kuykendall said he felt that there was too much missing information to make even a conditional approval. Following a brief discussion touching on concerns regarding the development, Kuykendall once again moved to disapprove. Gagnon seconded and all but Johnson voted in favor of recommending disapproval.

Hinchliffe was instructed to send the disapproval recommendation on to the council and to issue a formal written request for additional information to the developers.

Following the meeting, Johnson told The Times that he would have preferred to submit an approval with conditions, out of respect for the developers.