Brynn Grimley writes:
Well I’m going to bore you some more with land-use jargon. I realize this is not the way to win over readers, but land use discussions do tend to be important for folks, but usually not until they are directly impacted.
I’ll do my best to keep this short and sweet because really, besides a planner or developers, I’m not sure how many people care for zoning and regulation-speak.
I wrote in last week’s paper about the county looking to identify four rural areas in North Kitsap that could be labeled as “limited areas of more intense rural development,” or LAMIRDs. Now I know I’m not supposed to use the LAMIRD abbreviation all the time in stories because it makes the story very jargony, but to save myself from having to spell it out each time, you all will just have to remember what LAMIRD means.
The county has five existing LAMIRDs in Manchester, Suquamish, Keyport, Port Gamble and George’s Corner in Kingston. These all include residential uses and commercial uses. The four proposed for North Kitsap’s rural areas would only encompass commercial and industrial uses and not residential.
In a nutshell, the reason the county is looking to create these designations is to protect the existing uses that have been in place in these areas. The county is looking to update its rural policies under the comprehensive plan and as a result the changes could affect how these businesses operate.
Essentially, if approved, the LAMIRDs will allow them to continue operations as they have historically, while preventing them from expanding into surrounding rural areas where the uses aren’t compatible.
If you want to know more you should plan to attend tonight’s rural outreach meeting in Port Gamble at the pavilion. County planners will be on hand to hear from rural residents about how they’d like to see the rural areas “developed” (wrong word I know), and will discuss these LAMIRDs as well as the proposed NK Legacy Partnership.
Here’s the story I wrote on LAMIRDs. Here’s the story I wrote on the meetings. And for good measure here’s the story on the legacy partnership.
