The Olympia Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on Mon, July 21 at 6:30 pm on the city’s updates to the current draft of the Land Use & Urban Design Chapter.
This is the next step in the process to update the city’s comprehensive plan, which is required by state law every 10 years. The comp plan describes the community’s long-term vision and goals – looking 20 years into the future – and covers issues like housing, land use, transportation, parks and open spaces, utilities and public safety services, diversity and equity issues, and climate change.
For the past several months, a group of South Capitol Neighborhood Association (SCNA) board members and neighborhood residents have been attending meetings and providing written and oral comments and concerns about updates to the comp plan, specifically the Land Use & Urban Design Chapter. Links to previous blog posts on this topic are below:
Link to SCNA comment letter on Olympia Comprehensive Plan and Environmental Impact Statement (June 12, 2025)
Update on a Proposal to Allow Businesses In Neighborhoods (May 23, 2025)
SCNA on Proposal to Allow Businesses in Residential Neighborhoods (May 15, 2025)
Most recently, members of this neighborhood group spoke at a July 2nd online community meeting. John Saunders, Gordon White, Bruce Silverman, Courtney Nevitt, Holly Gadbaw, Sharon Case, Chuck Bolland and Greg Klein all made comments urging the city to include in the comp plan policies to discourage conversion of homes to business use. They pointed to a considerable number of homes in the South Capitol Neighborhood owned by lobbyists that are being used mainly during the few months the Legislature is in session and left vacant the rest of the year.
SCNA Board President John Saunders expressed dismay about the current draft, noting that this issue is why he met with City Manager Jay Burney, Deputy Director Tim Smith, and Code Enforcement Officer Dalton Maurer back in November 2024.
John said he described the issue to them and was told, if this is a problem, let’s get some updates in the comp plan. And that is why the SCNA, along with the Council of Neighborhood Associations (CNA), provided extensive written comments and suggestions for changes to the comp plan to city staff in January/February of this year.
John said he also provided verbal comments at a hearing on the Land Use Chapter before the Planning Commission in April, and further written comments to the Land Use Committee in May. Extensive comments on this problem and possible solutions also came up at a housing forum the city hosted with the CNA in June.
Despite all this, John said he still doesn’t see anything in the current draft that reflects our suggestions and our concerns. Specifically, we would like to see restored in Policy 19.2 of the current draft, a sentence that was deleted that says, “…prohibit conversion of housing in residential neighborhoods to commercial use”.
Monday’s Planning Commission meeting is the next step in the process to update the comp plan. If you are interested in watching the meeting and/or speaking at it, you will need to register ahead of time. Please click on this link to be taken to the page to register.
Planning Commission meeting details and agenda
We will continue to advocate for the neighborhood and keep you informed with updates as this issue as it progresses.
South Capitol Neighborhood Association 
Thank you for this update and for working on this issue. Jack Rice
LikeLike