2019_KittitasCountyHMP_Volume2_For Adoption

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CHAPTER 4. CITY OF ELLENSBURG ANNEX 3 – Climate—Ellensburg has strong summers and winters. Temperatures vary considerably within the seasons. There are four distinct seasons and a strong and regular breeze from the west throughout much of the year. Average mean temperatures range in the high 50s F with summertime temperatures averaging near 80° F and winter lows often getting below freezing. The mountains to the west and north effectively block much of the rain from the “wet” side of the state, producing a dry climate with less than 10 inches of rain a year. The combination of large snow pack in the mountains, strong westerly winds and occasional unseasonal warm rain events, however, results in regular flood events from February through May for the streams that run from the mountains through the city to the Yakima River. – Governing Body Format—The City of Ellensburg utilizes the council-manager form of government with a city manager hired by the city council. The city council elects a mayor and mayor pro tem from the council to serve two-year terms. The City also uses an appointed planning commission to provide land use policy recommendations to City Council and to hear conditional use permit applications. The City also retains the services of a Hearing Examiner to hear quasi-judicial land use permit application matters and provide recommendations to City Council. A number of citizen boards and commissions have been established to provide recommendation and guidance to council on a variety of issues, including the downtown, the environment, energy, historic preservation, parks and recreation, library, arts and affordable housing. – Development Trends—Beginning in the late 1990s and continuing up to the economic downturn in the late 2000s, the City experienced greater than usual growth, primarily in residential structures, although the population growth did not ma tch that rate of residential growth. That is primarily due to the housing boom in the early to mid-2000s and the reality that Ellensburg is a college town and it became easier for some families to purchase a second, speculative residence in which to house their child while attending CWU and to utilize the rent payment from roommates to pay the mortgage. The economic downturn of the late 2000s, stifled the growth spurt for a period of time, but Ellensburg is again seeing slow and steady growth. 4.3. JURISDICTION-SPECIFIC NATURAL HAZARD EVENT HISTORY Table 4-1 lists all past occurrences of natural hazards in the county. A Repetitive Loss (RL) property is any insurable building for which two or more claims of more than $1,000 were paid by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) within any rolling ten-year period, since 1978. Repetitive loss records in the City of Ellensburg are as follows: – Number of FEMA Identified Repetitive Flood Loss Properties: 0 – Number of Repetitive Flood Loss Properties that have been mitigated: 0 4.4. HAZARD RISK RANKING Table 4-2 presents the ranking of the hazards of concern. 4.5. CAPABILITY ASSESSMENT The assessment of the jurisdiction’s legal and regulatory capabilities is presented in Table 4-3. The assessment of the jurisdiction’s administrative and technical capabilities is presented in Table 4-4. The assessment of the jurisdiction’s fiscal capabilities is presented in Table 4-5. Classifications under various community mitigation programs are presented in Table 4-6.