Ordinance 3454-15 with Exhibits A- C

EVERETT COMPREHENSIVE PLAN VII. MONITORING THE LAND USE ELEMENT Although the Land Use Element is intended to be a guideline for the public, elected officials, Planning Commission, and City staff in making decisions concerning community growth and land use and development, it is not so rigid as to be inflexible or unresponsive to changing circumstances. While changes to the Land Use Element will be required from time to time, they should be carefully considered, responsive to the changing needs of the community, and in the best long- term interest of the entire community. In order to determine if the Land Use Element is effectively implementing the vision of the community, it should be periodically reviewed to determine how well it is performing. This is not to suggest that the policies of the Land Use Element be changed routinely, but that they are reviewed from time to time to keep the plan abreast with legal requirements, community needs, and changing circumstances. The Growth Management Act allows jurisdictions to amend comprehensive plans only once per year. The process for updating and amending the comprehensive plan is defined in Chapter 1. Changes to either the policies or land use map of the Land Use Element can be made only through a public review process conducted by the Planning Commission and City Council. The Planning Commission must conduct a public hearing and make a recommendation to the City Council. The City Council has the final authority to approve or deny a request to amend either the policies or land use map of the Land Use Element. A. Monitoring In order to measure the effectiveness of the implementation measures for the Land Use Element, it is necessary to monitor the progress made toward achieving the many goals and objectives contained in the text. The City does track certain measures (dwellings, population, square feet of building space, miles of sidewalks, etc.) of development activity that can be used to determine if certain goals are being met. However, qualitative objectives are more subjective and difficult to measure. For those types of actions that can be quantified, the City should maintain an up-to- date database that can be easily updated to measure such items as land consumption, inventory of vacant land of various types (single family residential, multiple family, commercial, industrial, etc.), employment levels, building permits, housing costs, vacancy rates, and population. Much of this data collection is included in the Snohomish County Tomorrow Growth Monitoring Report and the Buildable Lands Report. The more subjective qualities, such as overall community appearance, quality of life, and neighborhood character, are more difficult to measure yet very important in rating the overall effectiveness of the Land Use Element. Periodic public opinion surveys can be used to attempt to gauge these less tangible items. Typically, the more difficult to quantify aspects of community life have had more affect upon land use decisions made by appointed and elected decision makers than measurable trends, data and growth projections. Land use plan decisions are often based upon intuition or "how things feel" rather than on measurable statistical factors. Although often immeasurable, perceptions about the quality or character of growth must be understood if they are to be used as a basis for amending policies of the Land Use Element. LAND USE ELEMENT 67