Comments_Combined_KimleyHorn - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Kittitas County Comp Plan Comments Submitted by Phil Hess, Cle Elum April 10, 2026 Lots of draft Policy related to preserving and enhancing recreational values and features but little consideration is given to vegetation management for forest health and fire resiliency ,,, given that over 60% of our county is forest land — (900,000 + acres) roughly 50% federal forest land. —and another roughly 240,000 acres of State forested ownership —and it is this green forested landscape that attracts visitors to our county. Our county should actively engage with the USFS to promote an accelerated program of forest restoration - before we have more wildfires which destroy the very values we so actively promote -- recreation, wildlife habitat, forest watershed values - so important for water yield for Irrigated Ag. The county should actively promote the USFS to enter into long term 20 year Stewardship Contracts. This is the only way we an attract investments in markets for the vast amount of excess biomass we have in our forest-- Think wood to energy and biochar.—turning an asset liability into an asset. It is unrealistic to only think in terms of manufacturing of solid wood products when much of the forest material will not fit that market. 20 year stewardship contracts, wood to energy, and biochar are not new or revolutionary! These concepts have been around for decades ! A local federal partnership is required to make this happen — together with PSE & PUD Related to our WUI code: It appears to only kicks in with new development (and a building permit); Compliance with the WUI code should be continually enforced after the development or building permits are in place -- Throughout the upper county we have many older developments that are way out of compliance with WUI code defensible space. Also we should no longer permit developments with no secondary emergency access- Think Cle Bum Ridge and Hwy 903. What a disaster the access routes in these areas will become when we go to level 3. Which is going to happen. Some how this needs to be addressed in the Comp Plan. We should never fail to acknowledge that Upper County ranks 92 on a scale of 1-100 in WA state in terms of Fire Risk. (Headwaters Economics, Jan 24, 2022, p 4)) Also, although COG has recently come together with proposing a County Wide Econ Development Partnership (KCEDP) we still have 4 separate land use planning jurisdiction in the upper county. Each with their own boundaries and UGA's. I believe we should consolidate all upper county land use planning jurisdictions with the direction to form a professionally prepared master plan on how we envision the upper County to look 10-20-30 years from now with a Transportation plan being a critical part. We don't have a lot of choices: We are topographically boxed in with ridges to the north and south, the Easton sub area plan to the west, and Elk Hts/Swauk to our east with I- 90, two rivers and a RR down the middle. We must face reality: with what is already approved in Cle Elum alone the population will go from 2000 to 6000 at build out. and this is just the start. The upper county will readily grow from current about 12,000 to easily 30,000 in the next 10-20 years. There may be adequate water rights for all the pending development but is water flow adequate ? How is this addressed in the Comp Plan! If not already planned for I think you need more public outreach -- like at the Cle Elum Senior center