Rezoning Attalia
The Port of Walla Walla's requests for rezoning in the Attalia Industrial Urban Growth Area partially denied. By ANDY PORTER of the Union-Bulletin, 12/18/07
The Port of Walla Walla won some and lost some as Walla Walla County commissioners finished an update of the county's Comprehensive Plan on Monday. Commissioners partially denied the Port's request to rezone about 3,500 acres in the Attalia Industrial Urban Growth Area on the county's west side as Agriculture Heavy Industry, but did redesignate the area to allow some heavy industrial uses.
One specific exception to uses in the redesignated area, which will be the "Industrial Agriculture Mixed" zone, will be a ban on thermal power plants. The decision does not affect a nascent power plant project developers want to place in an area already zoned for heavy industrial use. Commissioners on Monday said the power plant exclusion was made based on public comments, many received during a Dec. 3 public hearing which was the last opportunity for public input on the proposed changes.
...(C)ommissioners Greg Tompkins and Gregg Loney said the partial approval and denial of the Port of Walla Walla's request was a compromise intended to address the concerns they heard expressed at public hearings while still allowing flexibility in what can be done in the Attalia Industrial area.
Loney said that although the Port "wanted the whole thing to be heavy industry, we went to a mixed use which allows a variety of uses. It gives you more diversity. But two things happened. We said there could be no power plant in the mixed (zone) and we took some of the things that are allowed in heavy industry and allowed them in the mixed-use zone, but only by the conditional-use permit process. This allows a higher level of scrutiny (for any proposed project)."
...In the legislative conclusions in the ordinance to create the mixed-use zone, commissioners noted that one issue that will have to be dealt with in the future is whether power plants other than solar or wind power are a permitted use in the heavy industrial zone.
County Planning Consultant Bill Stalzer said Monday that as staff researched issues prior to the Dec. 3 public hearing, they realized the current county codes do not make it clear whether thermal power plants are allowed in the current Agriculture Industrial Heavy District.
Although county commissioners did pass an ordinance in 2001 that allowed power plants in the industrial heavy zone, for some reason the change was never added into the county code. "So it needs to be determined if that is an allowed use or if it needs to be addressed by additional legislation," Stalzer said.Loney noted today that while the county has some jurisdiction in the siting of a power plant, the final decision is up to the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council. The Wallula Energy Resource Company LLC has filed a potential sitestudy request with EFSEC for a power plant project that would use a process to create synthetic gas from coal and for a 915-megawatt plant.