The Chehalis City Council is planning to combine the city’s planning commission and historic preservation commission due to a lack of interest in filling vacant seats.
Councilors approved the first step of the process during Monday’s business meeting by directing staff to put together an ordinance to repeal a section of the city’s municipal code on historic preservation and amend the section on the planning commission. The ordinance will be presented to the council during the next meeting on Sept. 8.
Each commission is structured to contain seven unpaid members who have applied for a seat, have been interviewed and recommended by the mayor, and ultimately appointed by council. Currently, both the planning commission and the historic preservation commission have vacant seats; the planning commission has one official vacant seat and “chronic absenteeism” in another,” according to the city, while the historic preservation commission has three unfilled seats.
According to city staff, these vacant seats have proven difficult to fill. Staff have advertised the openings, but interest has been minimal.
The workload for the historic preservation commission has also been low so far this year, said city Community Development Director Celest Wilder. Meanwhile, planning commissioners have had a steady workload, if not an increased one due to comprehensive plan updates. Due to the unbalanced workload between the two commissions, staff recommended dissolving the historic preservation commission and melding its duties with those of the planning commission. Opportunity would be provided to all current historic preservation commission members to apply for the open seat(s) with the planning commission.
“There’s always something on the docket for the planning commission. But with the historic preservation commission, we’ve only had four items brought to the commission for consideration by applicants or residents throughout the year,” Wilder said. “Minor improvement projects, for the most part, are what come to the historic preservation commission because the areas that they oversee are already developed.”
Staff believe the merger into one planning and historic preservation commission would provide for consistent effective review of all planning, development and other departmental operations which require input from either commission as they exist today.
If the two commissions had been combined sooner, a small facade improvement project on North Market Boulevard and a mural painting on Northwest Chehalis Avenue would have been the only two items added to the planning commission’s workload this year. The historic preservation commission also handled its section of the comprehensive plan and the Downtown Improvement Project.
City planning under the Growth Management Act (GMA) is not required to have separate planning and historic preservation commissions, and neither are cities with Certified Local Government (CLG) status through the Washington state Department of Archaeological and Historic Preservation (DAHP). Several cities, including Puyallup, Redmond and Roslyn, all plan under GMA, participate in the CLG program with DAHP and have combined planning and historic preservation commissions.
Councilor Robert Spahr expressed some concern with the potential merger, calling it a potential “collision course” as some members are solely interested in the planning side and others want to focus on historic preservation.
“The historic commission historically had a lot more to do several years ago when we developed all of the historic districts and put out the plaques,” he said. “There was a ton of work that those people did back then, and we just don’t have that kind of work anymore. But if we combine them, my concern is you’ve got people who are interested in planning and you’ve got people who are interested in historic preservation. It seems like a bit of a collision course.”
Councilor John Six, a former member of the historic preservation commission, gave his perspective on the difference between people passionate about preserving history in Chehalis and the exact role of the commissioners.
“There are some folks that are very passionate about preserving the history and the look and the feel of our community, which is great,” Six said. “What we came across, though, was the position and the role of that was not aligned necessarily with the goals and the passion to do this stuff. I absolutely believe we need a group of individuals that are volunteering, that are part of the group and supporting our downtown or helping raise money to do different things. But that’s not necessarily the role of the city’s commission.”
